438 


THE 


KANSAS  STRUGGLE,  OF  1856, 


IN  CONGRESS 


AND    IN    TIIK 


PRESIDENTIAL    CAMPAIGN; 


SUGGESTIONS  FOR  THE  FUTURE, 


NEW-YOKE;: 

AM  ERIC  AX    ABOLITION    SOCIETY, 

48    BEEKMAN    STREET. 

1857. 


V    \ 


THE 


KANSAS  STRUGGLE,  OF  1856, 


IN   CONGRESS, 


-AND  IY  THE. 


PRESIDENTIAL   CAMPAIGN; 


WITH 


SUGGESTIONS  FOR  THE  FUTURE. 


NEW-YORK: 
AMERICAN    ABOLITION    SOCIETY, 

48    BEEKMAN    STREET. 
1857. 


JOHN  A.  GRAY,  Printer  and  Stereotype^ 
16  &  18  Jacob  St.,  Fire-Proof  Buildings. 


i 

• 

I 


REVIEW. 


IN  order  to  a  full  and  distinct  understanding  of  the  struggle  of 
1856, in  Congress,  and  during  the  Presidential  campaign,  concerning 
Freedom  or  Slavery  in  Kansas  ;  it  will  be  necessary  to  bear  in  mind 
the  previous  controversy  concerning  the  extension  or  non-extension 
of  Slavery,  the  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  and  the  at- 
tempted settlement  of  Kansas  by  the  antagonistic  elements  of  Free- 
State  men  from  the  North,  and  Slavery  extensionists  from  the 
South.  Presuming  the  reader  to  be  already  in  possession  of  the 
leading  facts,  up  to  the  early  part  of  the  year  1856,  we  proceed  to 
a  Review  of  that  struggle.  Our  object  will  be  to  exhibit  clearly 
the  position  of  the  two  contending  parties,  the  "  Democratic"  and 
the  "Republican"  —  with  the  causes  which  occasioned  the  defeat 
of  the  latter,  and  the  triumph  of  the  friends  of  Slavery  extension. 

CONDITION  OF   KANSAS,   ETC. 

The  scenes  witnessed  hi  Kansas  and  at  the  seat  of  Government 
have  been  most  appalling.  Bloody  violence  has  been  stalking  forth 
under  the  abused  names  of  "  law  and  order."  The  Slave  Power, 
with  the  connivance  and  by  the  official  aid  of  the  Federal  Execu- 
tive, has  been  carrying  the  "  peculiar  institution"  by  fire  and  sword, 
and  massacre,  into  the  free  Territory  of  Kansas.  The  particulars 
are  too  voluminous  for  convenient  record  in  our  Review,  but  the 
country  and  the  world  are  already  in  possession  of  them.  For  the 
most  part,  they  are  embraced  in  the  Official  Report  of  a  Commit- 
tee appointed  by  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 
States,  presented  to  that  body,  and  published  under  its  authority. 
Since  the  date  of  that  Report,  there  has  been  no  essential  im- 
provement in  the  action  of  the  Federal  Executive,  nor  in  the  as- 
pect of  affairs  in  Kansas.  For  a  time  it  was  hoped,  by  some,  that 
the  appointment  of  Gov.  Geary  in  the  place  of  Gov.  Shannon  might 
prove  to  be  the  introduction  of  a  wiser  policy,  and  result  in  a  bet- 


M35383 


4  Proceedings  in  Congress. 

ter  condition,  of  the  Territory.  •  But  these  hopes  have  been  disap- 
pointed. iSTot'  only-  Has  "-there-  been  a  renewal  of  violent  outrages 
on  the  part  of  .the.  Missouri  invaders,  without  any  adequate  pro- 
tection "of -the- citiztens  t)y-t-hevFederal  Governor,  but  he  has  him- 
self, driven  back  peaceful  emigrants  from  the  Free  States,  and  has 
proceeded  to  arrest  as  criminals,  more  than  an  hundred  peaceful 
citizens  for  no  crime  but  that  of  preparing  to  defend  their  property, 
their  families,  and  their  fire-sides  from  banditti  of  barbarous  inva- 
ders from  the  Slave  States.  Under  his  auspices  another  bogus 
election  has  been  held,  in  which  the  voters  were  chiefly  non-resid- 
ents, citizens  of  Missouri,  who  only  came  in  to  vote  and  to  re- 
turn, while  no  resident  citizen  was  allowed  to  vote  except  on  con- 
dition of  taking  an  oath  to  sustain  the  Slave  Code  imposed  upon 
the  Territory,  against  the  known  wishes  of  a  large  majority  of  the 
residents,  by  armed  hordes  of  Missourians,  who  by  force  and  with 
slaughter  had  prevented  the  Free-State  settlers  from  voting.  In 
this  way  the  Territory  is  in  process  of  being  transformed  into  a 
Slave  State,  against  the  wishes  of  a  majority  of  bona-fide  settlers, 

PROCEEDINGS  IN  CONGRESS. 

In  Congress,  there  has  been  no  successful  stand  taken  against  the 
usurpations  of  the  Executive.  A  decided  majority  of  the  Senate  is  in 
full  sympathy  with  the  Executive,  and  acts  as  the  tool  of  the  Slave 
Power.  In  the  House  of  Representatives  the  opposition,  after  a  long 
and  severe  strugle,  elected  their  Speaker,  Mr.  N".  P.  Banks.  They 
likewise  appointed  an  Investigating  Committee  to  visit  Kansas,  as 
before  mentioned.  The  House  also  passed  a  bill  for  admitting 
Kansas  under  its  Free-State  Constitution,  adopted  at  Topeka,  but 
it  failed  of  passing  the  Senate.  Beyond  this,  little  or  nothing  of  a 
positive  character  has  been  effected.  For  a  time,  it  was  hoped 
that  the  House  would  steadfastly  adhere  to  their  declared  determi- 
nation not  to  pass  the  Army  Appropriation  bill,  except  on  condition 
that  the  Federal  troops  should  not  be  employed  in  enforcing  the 
enactments  of  the  Missouri  Ruffian  Legislature,  including  the  Slave 
Code.  The  regular  adjournment  of  both  Houses  took  place  with- 
out the  passage  of  the  bill.  But  an  extra  session  was  called  by 
the  President,  for  the  express  purpose  ;  when,  after  a  few  days,  a 
number  of  the  opposition  members  gave  way,  by  voluntary  ab- 
sence, and  suffered  the  bill  to  pass.  Various  statements  are  made 
in  respect  to  the  motives  which  led  to  this  course.  The  Washing- 
ton correspondent  of  the  New-  York  Herald,  a  leading  Fremont 
journal,  (Aug.  31,)  lays  the  blame  to  the  Republicans  themselves. 
He 


Proceedings  in  Congress.  5 

"  Letters  had  been  received  from  Greeley  and  others,  begging  the  Republicans 
to  change  their  tactics,  as  their  course  was  ruining  them  at  home.  In  one  letter 
G-reeley  says :  '  For  G-od's  sake  let  the  bill  pass.'  And  assurances  were  given  to 
Democrats  that  the  bill  should  pass,  if  they  would  play  their  cards  right.  '  When 
the  result  was  announced,  a  general  congratulation  prevailed  over  the  House, 
the  Republicans,  if  possible,  showing  the  greatest  joy.'  '  The  Republicans  could,  if 
they  had  chosen,  have  killed  the  bill.  Messrs.  "Walsh  of  Connecticut,  Milward  of 
Pennsylvania,  Miller  of  New- York,  with  Speaker  Banks,  would  have  defeated  it, 
but  they  were  evidently  anxious  it  should  pass.'  " 

The  N.  Y.  Tribune  replies  in  general  terms,  that "  the  statement 
is  not  according  to  truth ;"  but  says  nothing  specifically  of  the.  ab- 
sentees named,  nor  of  the  letter.  It  adds,  however,  the  following 
apology : 

"It  was  the  fault  of  the  Buchanan  and  Fillmore  men,  who  went  oflj  prematurely, 
that  this  result  was  not  attained,  days  ago."  ..."  "We  are  content  with  the  issue 
as  made  by  the  Senate,  and,  since  the  passage  of  the  House  proviso  was  impossible, 
we  were  and  are  ready  to  go  at  once  to  the  people.  Hence  we  were  willing  to 
see  the  Appropriation  Bill  carried  over  the  heads  of  the  Republicans,  and  the  ses- 
sion brought  to  a  close."  "  The  Republicans,  being  a  minority  of  the  House,  could 
not  prevent  the  ultimate  passage  of  the  bill  without  the  proviso." 

The  fault  charged  by  the  Herald,  it  will  be  noticed,  was,  that 
the  Republicans  suffered  the  bill  to  pass.  The  reply  is,  that  it  was 
"  the  fault  of  the  Buchanan  and  Fillmore  men"  that  it  was  not 
passed  sooner!  To  understand  this,  it  must  be  added  that  the 
Administration  presses  had  raised  a  loud  clamor  against  the  Repub- 
licans for  not  suffering  the  bill  to  pass.  This  they  represented  as 
being  disorganizing  and  revolutionary.  The  tone  of  the  Republi- 
can presses,  for  several  days  previous  to  the  passage  of  the  bill,  had 
betrayed  fears  concerning  the  political  effects  of  this  clamor. 

Such  are  the  facts,  so  far  as  ascertained,  in  respect  to  this  un- 
expected and  calamitous  event,  the  unrestricted  passage  of  the 
Army  bill,  by  the  House,  which,  according  to  present  appearances, 
is  very  likely  to  result  hi  the  permanent  subjugation  and  enslave- 
ment of  Kansas. 

Another  specimen  of  the  lame  and  vacillating  tactics  of  the 
opposition  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  is  seen  in  their  passing 
(by  a  large  majority,  including,  with  exception  of  about  six  mem- 
bers, the  entire  "  Republican"  force  hi  that  House)  of  the  so  called 
"  Kansas  Pacification  bill,"  which  was  brought  forward  by  Mr. 
Dunn,  a  partisan  of  Mr.  Fillmore. 

The  following  abstract  of  the  bill  is  from  the  N~.  Y.  Tribune : 

"  Mr  Dunn's  bill  proposed 

"  1.  To  wipe  out  the  Border  Ruffian  legislation  in  Kansas  by  which  the  term  of 
the  bogus  '  Council'  was  protracted  til  Jan.  1,  1858; 


6  Condition  of  Society  at  Washington  City. 

"  2.  To  dismiss  and  restore  to  private  life  all  the  officers  and  appointees  of  the 
bogus  Legislature,  so  soon  as  a  new  Legislature  should  be  ready  to  fill  their  places ; 

" 3.  To  set  free  the  Free-State  prisoners; 

"  4.  To  annul  the  most  obnoxious  of  the  Border  Ruffian  laws ; 

"  5.  To  secure  homesteads  in  Kansas  to  actual  settlers,  whether  native-born  or 
not; 

"  6.  To  prohibit  the  entrance  of  another  slave  into  Kansas ; 

''  —  but  as  the  Official  Census  shows  that  there  were  192  slaves  in  Kansas  a 
year  and  more  ago,  Mr.  Dunn's  bill  continues — 

"Provided,  however,  That  any  person  lawfully  held  to  serve  in  either  of  said  Ter- 
ritories shall  not  be  discharged  from  such  service  by  reason  of  such  repeal  and  re- 
vival of  said  eighth  section,  if  such  persons  shall  be  permanently  removed  from  such 
Territory  or  Territories  prior  to  the  1st  day  of  January,  1858 :  and  any  child  or 
children  born  in  either  of  said  Territories,  of  any  female  lawfully  held  to  service,  if 
in  like  manner  removed  without  said  Territories  before  the  expiration  of  that  date, 
shall  not  be,  by  reason  of  any  thing  hi  this  act,  emancipated  from  any  service  it 
might  have  owed  had  this  act  never  been  passed :  And  provided  further,  That  any 
person  lawfully  held  to  service  in  any  other  State  or  Territory  of  the  United  States, 
and  escaping  into  either  the  Territory  of  Kansas  or  Nebraska,  may  be  reclaimed 
and  removed  to  the  person  or  place  where  such  service  is  due,  under  any  law  of 
the  United  States  which  shall  be  in  force  upon  the  subject." 

This  bill  failed  of  becoming  a  law,  only  because  it  was  rejected 
by  the  pro-slavery  Senate. 

The  last  Session  of  Congress  was  disgraced  by  the  ferocious  and 
cowardly  assault  of  Preston  S.  Brooks,  Member  of  the  House  from 
South-Carolina,  upon  Hon.  Charles  Stunner,  Senator  of  Massachu- 
setts, in  the  Chamber  of  the  Senate.  Under  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  case,  it  stands,  perhaps,  without  a  parallel.  Its  avowed  ob- 
ject was  the  suppression  of  freedom  of  debate,  on  the  Slave  ques- 
tion, with  threats  of  similar  inflictions  on  others.  A  circle  of  pro- 
Slavery  members,  as  if  acting  by  previous  concert,  stood  sentinels 
ta  prevent  assistance  to  the  defenseless  victim,  who  was  taken  at 
unawares,  and  in  a  position  that  prevented  self-defense.  By  award 
of  the  City  Judiciary,  the  price  of  perpetrating  such  enormities 
was  put  down  at  the  petty  sum  of  $300. — In  the  House,  a  majority 
voted  for  his  expulsion,  but,  failing  to  reach  the  constitutional 
condition  of  a  two-thirds  vote,  it  was  of  no  legal  effect.  But  Mr. 
Brooks  resigned,  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  appealing  to  his  con- 
stituents, who  reflected  him  by  acclamation,  and  loaded  him  with 
commendations  and  honors,  such  as  they  had  to  bestow. 

CONDITION  OP  SOCIETY  AT  WASHINGTON  CITY. 

The  brutal  murder  of  Keating,  an  Irish  waiter  in  a  hotel  in 
Washington  City,  by  Philip  T.  Herbert,  member  of  Congress,  of 
California,  the  legal  impunity  that  sanctioned  the  deed,  the  gratula- 


Proposed  Enslavement  of  the  Whites.  7 

tions  of  Southern  members  of  Congress,  and  the  editorial  promulga- 
tion of  the  sentiment  that  white  waiters  as  well  as  colored  ones,  must 
take  the  chance  of  being  murdered  by  gentlemen,  at  their  caprice 
or  pleasure,  are  among  the  minor  incidents  of  the  past  year,  mark- 
ing the  rapid  and  successful  strides  of  Slavery  towards  the  undis- 
puted dominion  of  the  entire  country. 

PROPOSED  ENSLAVEMENT  OF  THE  WHITES. 

Along  with  this  has  been  witnessed  the  promulgation  of  the 
sentiment  that  Slavery  is  not  for  the  African  race  only,  but  that 
the  laboring  whites  are  to  come  in  for  a  share  of  the  blessings  of 
that  "Christianizing"  institution.  Gov.  McDuffie,  Prof.  Dew,  Mr. 
Pickens,  Mr.  Leigh,  Mr.  Hammond,  John  C.  Calhoun,  and  other 
Southern  gentlemen  of  distinction,  many  years  ago  had  given 
utterance  to  the  sentiment,  and  sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of 
Gov.  McDuffie  (in  1836)  coupled  with  the  prediction  that  within 
twenty-five  years,  the  laboring  population  of  the  North  would 
begin  to  come  under  the  same  yoke  with  the  negroes.  During 
the  current  year,  it  has  been  apparent  that  the  attempt  is  about  to 
be  made  in  good  earnest.  If  the  scenes  of  Kansas  and  of  Washing- 
ton City  are  much  longer  to  be  tolerated,  it  may  be  concluded 
that  the  subjugation  has  already  begun. 

Accordingly,  the  tone  of  the  pro-Slavery  presses,  including  at 
least  one  at  the  North,  are  boldly  advocating  the  measure.  And 
no  marvel.  The  "  Biblical"  defenses  of  Slavery,  Northern  and 
Southern,  make  no  distinction  of  color,  if  we  except  the  argument 
drawn  from  the  "  curse  of  Ham"  and  the  assumption  that  Ham 
was  a  negro.  The  Slavery  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  alleged  to 
have  been  sanctioned  by  the  New  Testament  writers,  was  cer- 
tainly the  Slavery  of  whites.  It  may  be  well  to  record  here,  a 
few  of  the  legitimate  results  of  such  clerical  teachings,  and  to 
notice  the  simultaneous  propagation  of  these  sentiments,  with  the 
proceedings  at  the  seat  of  Government  and  in  Kansas.  The  one 
may  be  regarded  as  an  appropriate  and  significant  comment  upon 
the  other. 

The  Richmond  Examiner ',  one  of  the  leading  Democratic  papers 
in  Virginia,  ardently  supporting  Mr.  Buchanan,  holds  the  follow- 
ing language  in  a  late  issue : 

"  Until  recently,  the  defense  of  Slavery  has  labored  under  great  difficultiej? 
because  its  apologists  (for  they  were  mere  apologists)  took  half-way  grounds. 
They  confined  the  defense  of  Slavery  to  mere  negro  Slavery ;  thereby  giving  up  the 
Slavery  principle,  admitting  other  forms  of  Slavery  to  be  wrong. 


8  Proposed  Enslavement  of  the  Whites. 

"  The  line  of  defense,  however,  i3  now  changed.  The  South  now  maintains  that 
Slavery  is  right,  natural  and  necessary,  and  does  not  depend  on  difference  of 
COMPLEXION".  The  laws  of  the  Slave  States  justify  the  holding  of  WHITE 
MEN  in  bondage." 

Another  Buchanan  paper,  the  leading  one  in  South-Carolina, 
says: 

"Slavery  is  the  natural  and  normal  condition  of  the  laboring  man,  whether 
WHITE  or  black.  The  great  evil  of  Northern  free  society  is,  that  it  is  burdened  with 
:i  servile  class  of  MECHANICS  and  LABORERS,  unfit  for  self-government,  yet 
clothed  with  the  attributes  and  powers  of  citizens.  Master  and  slave  is  a  relation 
in  society  as  necessary  as  that  of  parent  and  child;  and  the  Northern  States  will 
vet  have  to  introduce  it.  Their  theory  of  free  government  is  a  delusion." 

The  Richmond  (Va.)  Enquirer,  Mr.  Buchanan's  confidential 
organ,  and  considered  by  the  "  Democratic"  party  as  its  ablest 
paper  in  the  South,  speaks  as  follows  in  a  recent  number : 

"  Repeatedly  have  we  asked  the  North  '  Has  not  the  experiment  of  Universal 
liberty  FAILED?  Are  not  the  evils  of  FREE  SOCIETY  INSUFFERABLE ? 
And  do  not  most  thinking  men  among  you  propose  to  subvert  and  reconstruct  it  ?' 
Still  no  answer.  This  gloomy  silence  is  another  conclusive  proof  added  to  many 
other  conclusive  evidences  we  have  furnished,  th&ifree  society  in  the  long  run,  is  an 
impracticable  form  of  society ;  it  is  everywhere  starving,  demoralizing,  and  insurrec- 
tionary. 

"We  repeat,  then,  that  policy  and  humanity  alike  forbid  the  existence  of  the  evils 
of  free  society  to  new  people  and  coming  generations. 

"Two  opposite  and  conflicting  forms  of  society  can  not,  among  civilized  men 
coexist  and  endure.  The  one  must  give  way  and  cease  to  exist,  the  other  become 
universal. 

"  If  free  society  be  unnatural,  immoral,  unchristian,  it  must  fall,  and  give  way  to 
a  slave  society — a  social  system  old  as  the  world,  universal  as  man." 

And  the  Muscogee  (Ala.)  Herald,  says  : 

"Free  society!  we  sicken  at  the  name.  What  is  it  but  a  conglomeration  of 
GREASY  MECHANICS,  FILTHY  OPERATIVES,  SMALL-FISTED  FARMERS, 
and  moonstruck  THEORISTS?  AH  the  Northern,  and  especially  the  New -Eng- 
land States,  are  devoid  of  society  fitted  for  well-bred  gentlemen.  The  prevailing 
class  one  meets  with  is  that  of  mechanics  struggling  to  be  genteel,  and  small  farm- 
•TA  who  do  their  own  drudgery ;  and  yet  who  are  hardly  fit  for  association  with  a 
Southern  gentleman's  body  servant.  This  is  your  free  society  which  the  North- 
ern hordes  are  endeavoring  to  extend  into  Kansas." 

And  the  /South  Side  Democrat,  another  prominent  Buchanan 
paper,  in  Viginia,  whose  editor  was  supported  for  Clerk  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  by  the  Democratic  members  of  the  pre- 
sent Congress — abuses  every  thing  FREE  after  this  style : 

"We  have  got  to  hating  every  thing  with  the  prefix  FREE,  from  free  negroes 
down  and  up  through  the  whole  catalogue— FREE  farms,  FREE  labor,  FREE 
society,  FREE  will,  FREE  thinking,  FREE  children  and  FREE  schools,  all  be- 


Proposed  Enslavement  of  the  WTiites.  9 

longing  to  the  same  brood  of  damnable  isms.  But  the  worst  of  all  these  abomina- 
tions is  the  modern  system  of  FREE  SCHOOLS.  The  New-England  system  of 
free  schools  has  been  the  cause  and  prolific  source  of  the  infidelities  and  treason 
that  have  turned  her  cities  into  Sodoms  and  Gomorrahs,  and  her  land  into  the 
common  nestling-places  of  howling  Bedlamites.  We  abominate  the  system  because 
SCHOOLS  ARE  FREE." 

The  Washington  Union,  the  national  organ  of  the  "  Demo- 
cratic" party,  says  that  the  honest  and  heroic  FREE  LABORING 
MEN  of  Kansas, 

"  Are  a  MISERABLE,  BLEAR-EYED  RABBLE,  who  have  been  transferred 
like  so  MANY  CATTLE  to  that  country." 

The  New-York  Day  Book,  one  of  the  two  papers  in  New- York 
City  that  supported  James  Buchanan,  proposes  to  enslave  poor 
AMERICANS,  GERMANS,  and  IRISH,  who  may  fall  into  pov- 
erty and  be  unable  to  support  their  families.  Here  are  the  Day 
Bootes  exact  words,  in  speaking  of  the  POOR  "WHITE  PEO- 
PLE: 

"  Sell  the  parents  of  these  children  into  SLAVERY.  Let  our  Legislature  pass 
a  law  that  whoever  will  take  these  parents  and  take  care  of  them  and  their  OFF- 
SPRING-, in  sickness  and  in  health — clothe  them,  feed  them,  and  house  them — shall 
be  legally  entitled  to  their  service ;  and  let  the  same  Legislature  decree  that  whoever 
receives  these  parents  and  their  CHILDREN,  and  obtains  their  services,  shall  take 
care  of  them  AS  LONG  AS  THEY  LIVE." 

S.  W.  Downs,  late  Democratic  Senator  from  Louisiana,  in  an 
elaborate  and  carefully  prepared  speech,  published  in  the  Wash- 
ington Globe-,  says : 

"  I  call  upon  the  opponents  of  Slavery  to  prove  that  the  WHITE  LABORERS 
of  the  North  are  as  happy,  as  contented,  or  as  comfortable  as  the  slaves  of  the 
South.  In  the  South  the  slaves  do  not  suffer  one  tenth  of  the  evils  endured  by  the 
white  laborers  of  the  North.  Poverty  is  unknown  to  the  Southern  slave,  for  as 
soon  as  the  master  of  slaves  becomes  too  poor  to  provide  for  them,  he  SELLS  them 
to  others  who  can  take  care  of  them.  This,  sir,  is  one  of  the  excellencies  of  the 
system  of  Slavery,  and  this  the  superior  condition  of  the  Southern  slave  over  the 
Northern  WHITE  LABORER." 

Senator  Clemens,  of  Alabama,  declared,  in  a  speech  in  the  U.  S. 
Senate,  that  "  the  operatives  of  New-England  were  not  as  well 
situated,  nor  as  comfortably  off  as  the  slaves  that  cultivate  the  rice 
and  cotton  fields  of  the  South." 

In  a  recent  speech  by  Mr.  Reynolds,  candidate  for  Congress 
from  Missouri,  that  gentleman  distinctly  asserted  that — 

1  The  same  construction  of  the  power  of  Congress  to  exclude  Slavery  from  a 
United  States  Territory,  would  justify  the  Government  in  excluding  foreign-born 
citizens— GERMANS  AND  IRISH  AS  WELL  AS  NIGGERS." 


10  Proposed  Enslavement  of  the  Whites. 

Here  a  Missouri  Democrat  classes  GERMAN  and  IRISH  in- 
discriminately with  NEGRO  SLAVES. 

Mr.  L.  H.  Goode,  another  Atchison  Democrat  of  Missouri,  in  a 
recent  speech  against  the  Free  State  men  of  Kansas,  denounced 
the  LABORING  men  as  "WHITE  SLAVES." 

SENATOR  BUTLER,  (the  uncle  of  Preston  S.  Brooks,)  de- 
clared in  a  speech  in  the  U.  S.  Senate  this  session : 

"  That  men  have  no  right  to  VOTE  unless  they  are  possessed  of  property  as  re- 
quired by  the  Constitution  of  South-Carolina,  There  no  man  can  vote  unless  he 
owns  ten  negroes,  or  real  estate  to  the  value  of  ten  thousand  dollars." 

In  reference  to  the  murder  of  Keating,  the  Irish  waiter,  at  Wil- 
lard's  Hotel,  "Washington  City,  by  Hon.  Philip  T.  Herbert,  the 
Charleston  Standard  said : 

"If  "WHITE  MEN"  accept  the  office  of  menials,  it  should  be  expected  that  they 
will  do  so  with  an  apprehension  of  their  relation  to  society,  and  the  disposition 
quietly  to  encounter  both  the  responsibilities  and  liabilities  which  the  relation  im- 


The  Alabama  Mail,  in  commenting  on  the  same,  says  : 

"  It  is  getting  time  that  waiters  at  the  North  were  convinced  that  they  are  ser- 
vants, and  not  '  gentlemen'  in  disguise.  "We  hope  this  Herbert  affair  will  teach 
them  prudence." 

It  is  in  the  light  of  these  sentiments,  we  apprehend,  that  the 
present  and  prospective  politics  of  the  nation  are  to  be  studied. 
The  longer  continuance  of  Slavery  must,  almost  of  necessity,  in- 
volve the  enslavement  of  the  whites.  The  line  of  demarkation 
between  the  white  and  colored  races  is  every  year  becoming 
fainter  and  fainter.  The  proportion  of  white  slaves,  described, 
advertised,  bought  and  sold  as  such,  is  constantly  and  rapidly  on 
the  increase.  The  relative  position  of  the  whites  and  of  the  colored 
people,  among  the  poorer  classes,  has,  from  this  cause,  undergone 
a  marked  change  since  the  commencement  of  the  anti-slavery  agi- 
tation, twenty-three  or  four  years  ago.  Predictions  then  regarded 
as  extravagant  are  already  in  process  of  fulfillment.  Unless  there 
should  be  a  brisk  renewal  of  fresh  importations  from  Africa,  it  is 
evident  that  color  will  not  much  longer  remain  the  criterion  of 
liability  to  enslavement.  There  is  danger  that,  with  the  poorer 
classes  of  whites,  the  reopening  of  the  African  slave-trade  will 
come  to  be  looked  upon  with  favor,  as  affording  them  some  tem- 
porary protection.  Enactments  for  the  rendition  of  fugitive  slaves, 
by  the  facilities  they  afford  to  kidnapping,  can  scarcely  fail  to  in- 
volve the  enslavement  of  many  who  have  no  African  blood  in  their 


Pro-Slavery  Theories  of  the  Government.  11 

veins.  Already,  though  a  dark  color  is  held  to  be  presumptive 
evidence  of  a  state  of  Slavery,  it  can  not  be  said  that  a  white  skin 
is  regarded  as  a  presumptive  evidence  of  a  condition  of  freedom. 
Whites  are  already  held  as  slaves.  And  Judge  McLean,  in  his 
decision  in  the  case  of  Querry,  laid  down  the  rule  that  even  in  the 
absence  of  statutes  establishing  Slavery,  the  continuance  of  the 
practice  makes  it  legal,  provided  it  be  maintained  for  an  hundred 
years. 

Let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  neither  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, nor  the  Federal  Constitution,  nor  the  State  Constitu- 
tions, at  the  period  when  the  Federal  Constitution  was  formed, 
made  any  distinction  of  race  or  color.  It  is  thence  easy  to  see 
that  the  claimants  of  legalized  and  constitutional  slaveholding,  in 
this  country,  can  afford  to  make  no  such  distinction.  And  it  is 
equally  plain  that  the  laboring  whites  have  a  deep  and  vital  inter- 
est in  all  questions  concerning  the  legal  tenure  and  Constitutional 
recognitions  of  Slavery,  whether  in  the  Territories  or  in  the 
States. 

There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  the  novel  and  extraor- 
dinary efforts  for  carrying  Slavery  into  the  higher  northern  lati- 
tudes, is  based  in  no  small  measure  upon  this  long  foregone  con- 
clusion, that  the  poorer  class  of  whites,  both  at  the  North  and  at 
the  South,  are  to  become  slaves.  The  Kansas-Nebraska  bill, 
removing  the  obsolete  geographical  distinction ;  the  ruffian  raid 
upon  Kansas ;  the  pre-concerted  and  joyously  celebrated  violation 
of  free  speech  in  the  Federal  District,  and  in  the  Senate  Chamber, 
are  all  parts  of  the  same  enterprise.  To  be  understood  correctly, 
they  must  be  understood  in  their  natural  connection  with  each 
other.  We  turn  to  another  branch  of  the  subject. 

PRO-SLAYERY  THEORIES  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT. 

The  theory  of  our  State  and  National  Governments  under  which 
these  lawless  aggressions  find  shelter,  deserves  the  most  careful 
attention.  It  is  well  known  that  the  Slavery  propagandists  of  the 
South,  with  their  Northern  allies,  are,  professedly,  the  champions 
of  what  they  denominate  "  State  Rights."  Under  this  plausible 
term  they  include  and  claim  the  right  of  the  States  to  maintain 
and  protect  Slavery,  a  system  in  which  one  citizen  is  held  as  a 
chattel  personal  by  another.  This  claim  assumes  the  possibility  of 
human  chattelhood,  and  likewise  the  legality  of  the  tenure  under 
which  slaves  in  this  country  are  actually  held.  With  this  is  also 
connected,  by  them,  the  doctrine  that  the  Constitution  of  the 


12  Pro-Slavery  Tfieories  of  the  Government. 

United  States  recognizes  Slavery  as  a  legitimate  institution  in  the 
States  wherein  it  exists,  and  regards  slave  property  as  entitled  to 
the  same  Federal  protection  that  is  afforded  to  other  descriptions 
of  property.  This  is  the  theory  that  has  been  held  by  the  slave- 
holders and  their  Northern  supporters,  from  the  beginning  of  the 
present  agitation  of  the  Slavery  question. 

But  the  debate  on  the  Nebraska  bill  developed  an  improved 
phase  of  the  doctrine.  The  determination  to  carry  Slavery  into 
free  territory,  that  had,  by  the  Missouri  Compromise,  been  con- 
ceded to  freedom,  demanded  an  extension  of  the  old  theory. 
Instead  of  claiming  that  the  Constitution  protects  Slavery  where 
it  exists  by  positive  law,  (statutory  enactment,)  it  became  neces- 
sary to  claim  that  it  protects  slave  property  wherever  the  owner 
pleases  to  carry  it.  And,  inasmuch  as  the  opening  of  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  to  the  entrance  of  slaveholders  with  their  slaves,  re- 
quired the  protection  of  the  Federal  Government,  prior  to  the 
establishment  of  a  State  Government  that  could  protect  Slavery, 
it  became  necessary  to  affirm  Mr.  Calhoun's  doctrine,  that  Slavery 
exists  by  natural  right,  or  by  usage,  without  positive  law.  There 
was  another  necessity  for  this  change.  Abolitionists  had  discov- 
ered and  had  published  the  fact  that  there  are  no  positive  laws  or 
statutes  establishing  Slavery  in  any  one  of  the  States.  The  testi- 
monies of  Mr.  Calhoun,  and  of  the  Southern  judges,  Matthews 
and  Porter,  had  been  adduced  to  this  point.  Senator  Mason,  of 
Virginia,  had  been  led  to  affirm  the  fact,  as  a  reason  why  no  jury 
trial  should  be  allowed  to  fugitive  slaves. 

Besides  all  this,  the  contests  concerning  the  Wilmot  proviso, 
and  the  demand  of  abolitionists  and  free-soilers  that  "  no  more 
Slave  States"  should  come  into  the  Union,  as  well  as  the  Southern 
determination  to  extend  Slavery  north  of  36°  30',  made  it  neces- 
sary to  find  some  new  basis  on  which  to  found  the  right  of  the 
slaveholders,  everywhere-)  to  the  protection  of  whatever  species  of 
"  property"  they  might  carry  along  with  them. 

The  suit  of  Virginia  versus  New- York,  seeking  the  reversal  of 
Judge  Paine's  decision,  which  had  liberated  the  slaves  brought 
into  New- York  by  their  claimant,  Mr.  Lemmon ;  the  decision  of 
Judge  Kane  in  respect  to  Passmore  Williamson,  who  had  simply 
informed  the  slaves  brought  into  Pennsylvania  by  Mr.  Wheeler,  of 
their  right  to  freedom — these  are  among  the  evidences  of  a  deter- 
mination to  establish,  by  the  Federal  authorities,  the  right  of  slave 
masters  to  hold  slaves  wherever  they  please  to  carry  them. 

The  action  of  the  Federal  Executive  in  respect  to  Kansas,  dur- 
ing the  past  year,  has  been  evidently  based  on  the  same  principle, 


"State  Equality:'1  13 

and  has  been  directly  aimed  to  give  it  practical  effect.  It  is 
deeply  interesting,  therefore,  to  learn  the  precise  grounds  on 
which  the  present  phase  of  constitutional  exposition  stands. 


"  STATE  EQUALITY." 

The  new  item,  (if,  in  reality,  there  be  any,)  in  addition  to  the 
change  of  human  property  tenure,  from  positive  municipal  statute 
to  natural  or  common  law,  will  be  found  to  consist  in  the  idea 
represented  by  the  phrases — "  State  Equality?  or  "  Equality  of 
the  States."  The  import  of  the  phrase,  and  the  uses  to  which  it 
is  to  be  applied,  may  be  gathered  from  the  following  extracts. 

At  a  Pennsylvania  State  Convention  for  nominating  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan it  was 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Equality  of  the  States  is  the  vital  element  of  the  Constitu- 
tion itself,  and  that  the  interference  with  the  rights  of  the  States  by  those  who  seek 
to  disregard  the  sacred  guarantees  of  the  past,  and  by  all  others,  should  be  rebuked 
with  the  same  spirit  that  we  would  denounce  and  repudiate  all  attempts  to  erect 
odious  distinctions  between  those  who  are  entitled  to  share  the  blessings  and  bene- 
fits of  our  free  institutions." 

The  allusions,  here,  to  "interference,"  "guarantees," and  "odious 
distinctions,"  sufficiently  indicate  the  reference  of  the  Resolution  to 
Slavery,  and  show  that  the  "  rebuke"  was  levelled  against  all  who 
would  interfere  with  it,  anywhere  —  in  any  State  or  Territory. 
The  "  State  Right"  of  maintaining  slavery,  so  commonly  conceded 
to  the  Old  Slave  States,  is  here  claimed  for  the  New  States,  and 
for  the  Territories  out  of  which  such  States  are  to  be  formed. 
This  view  of  it  will  be  confirmed  by  the  following : 

"  THE  CINCINNATI  CONVENTION. — An  entirely  new  issue  will  be  presented  in  the 
approaching  Presidential  canvass — an  issue  which  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  or 
evade.  The  Opposition  is  essentially  an  Abolition  party.  It  proposes  to  repeal 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  act  and  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  It  thereby  denies  State 
Equality.  The  Democracy  oppose  the  repeal  of  those  laws,  and  seem  thereby  to 
maintain  State  Equality.  But  all  room  for  doubt  or  cavil  must  be  removed.  We 
must,  in  the  Cincinnati  Platform,  repudiate  Squatter  Sovereignty,  and  expressly 
assert  State  Equality.  We  must  declare  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment to  see  that  no  invidious  or  injurious  distinctions  are  made  between  the  people 
or  the  property  of  different  sections,  in  the  Territories.  We  do  not  mean  to  dictate. 
It  may  be,  that  the  assertion  in  the  Platform  of  the  abstract  proposition  of  State 
Equality  may  suffice  to  carry  along  with  it  the  consequences  which  we  desire. 
But  it  is  often  charged,  that  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  contains  the  doctrine  of  Squat- 
ter Sovereignty,  and  that  Squatter  Sovereignty  is  the  most  efficient  agent  of  Free- 
Soilism.  Some  Northern  Democrats  have  maintained  this  ground.  Now,  this  gun 
must  be  spiked.  It  must  appear,  from  our  Platform,  that  we  maintain  practical 


14  Cincinnati  Platform. 

State  Equality,  and  repudiate  that  construction  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  act  which 
would  defeat  it.  The  South  only  demands  equality  of  rights." — Richmond  En- 
quirer, April  28,  1856. 

The  meaning  is  obvious.  Those  who  had  previously  opposed 
the  admission  of  new  Slave  States  had  conceded  the  Constitutional 
right  of  the  original  States  to  maintain  slavery,  but  had  urged  the 
Constitutional  right  of  restriction  upon  new  States,  making  it  a 
condition  that  they  should  come  in  as  free  States.  In  the  debates 
on  the  Nebraska  bill,  the  Slavery  propagandists  had  carried  the 
vote  over  their  opponents,  by  affirming  the  Constitutional  equality 
of  the  States,  and  that,  whenever  a  State  was  admitted  at  all,  it 
was  to  be  admitted  on  a  footing  of  perfect  equality  with  the 
others.  On  this  ground  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  held  to  be 
unconstitutional,  and  the  same  principle  would  repudiate  the  Jeffer- 
sonian  Ordinance  of  1787.  The  "  Squatter  Sovereignty"  doctrine, 
however,  had  been  affirmed,  according  to  which  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Territory  might  either  establish  slavery,  or  exclude  it,  as 
they  pleased.  But  this  doctrine  was  now  to  be  set  aside,  lest  the 
free-State  men  should  preponderate.  The  Federal  Government 
was  to  be  charged  with  the  "  duty"  of  protecting  the  "property" 
of  slaveholders  in  the  Territory — their  "  property"  in  slaves. 


CINCINNATI  PLATFORM. 

The  Cincinnati  Convention  was  soon  after  held.  It  was  a  Na- 
tional Convention  of  the  Democratic  Party,  and  nominated  Mr. 
Buchanan  for  President.  The  Resolutions  adopted  as  a  Platform, 
by  this  Convention,  declare  that  the  Constitution  is  to  be  "strictly 
construed" — that  it  confers  no  powers  for  carrying  on  internal  im- 
provements, to  assume  State  debts,  to  foster  particular  branches  of 
industry,  to  distribute  public  funds  among  the  States,  or  to  charter 
n  national  Bank.  It  approves  the  "  qualified  Presidential  veto," 
lauds  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  "  which  makes  ours  the 
land  of  liberty,  and  the  asylum  of  the  oppressed  of  every  nation," 
(not  meaning  to  include  the  negro,) — denounces  the  "  Alien  and 
Sedition  laws,"  (except  those  enforced  in  Kansas,)  and  all  attempts 
to  proscribe  and  disfranchise  men  on  account  of  their  religion  or 
"  accidental  place  of  birth;"  [forgetting  to  add  "  or  complexion"!] 
It  then  proceeds : 

"  Resolved,  That  we  reiterate,  with  renewed  energy  of  purpose,  the  well-con- 
sidered declarations  of  former  Conventions  upon  the  sectional  issue  of  domestic 
slavery,  and  concerning  the  reserved  rights  of  the  States : 


Cincinnati  Platform.  15 

"  1.  That  Congress  has  no  power,  under  the  Constitution,  to  interfere  with  or 
control  the  domestic  institutions  of  the  several  States,  and  that  such  States  are  the 
sole  and  proper  judges  of  every  thing  appertaining  to  their  own  affairs  not  pro- 
hibited by  the  Constitution ;  that  all  efforts  of  the  Abolitionists  or  others,  made  to 
interfere  with  questions  of  slavery,  or  to  take  incipient  steps  in  violation  thereto, 
are  calculated  to  lead  to  the  most  alarming  and  dangerous  consequences ;  and  that 
all  such  efforts  have  an  inevitable  tendency  to  diminish  the  happiness  of  the  people, 
and  endanger  the  stability  and  permanency  of  the  Union,  and  ought  not  to  be 
countenanced  by  any  friend  of  our  political  institutions." 

The  succeeding  resolutions  contain  a  pledge  to  abide  by  the 
compromise  measures  of  1850,  including  particularly  "the  act  for 
reclaiming  fugitives  from  service  and  labor" — and  "  to  resist  all 
attempts  to  renew  anti-slavery  agitation."  It  reaffirms  the  Ken- 
tucky and  Virginia  Resolutions  of  1798,  and  Mr.  Madison's  Vir- 
ginia Report  of  1799 — (embracing  the  Southern  doctrine  of  "  State 
Rights.") 

To  this  summary  of  the  former  testimonies  of  the  party,  the 
Convention  adds  others,  "  to  meet  more  distinctly,  the  issue  of  a 
sectional  party,  subsisting  on  anti-slavery  agitation,"  etc.,  namely : 

The  Convention  "  recognize  and  adopt  the  principles"  of  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  bill — "  non-interference  by  Congress  with  slavery 
in  State  and  Territory ,  or  in  the  District  of  Columbia,"  declaring 
this  to  be  "the  basis  of  the  Compromise  measures  of  1850,  con- 
firmed both  by  the  Democratic  and  Whig  parties,  in  the  election 
of  1852."  It  recognizes  the  right  of  the  people  of  the  Territory 
"  to  form  a  Constitution  with  or  without  domestic  slavery,  and  be 
admitted  into  the  Union,  UPON  TEEMS  OF  PERFECT  EQUALITY  WITH 

THE  OTHEE,  STATES." 

The  remaining  Resolutions  magnify  the  sacredness  of  "State 
rights" — the  importance  of  "  resisting  all  monopolies  and  exclusive 
legislation,  for  the  benefit  of  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many" 
—and  upholding  "  the  compromises  of  the  Constitution."  They 
also  indorse  "  the  Monroe  doctrine,"  anticipate  free  communication 
between  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific,  recommend  "  every  proper  effort 
to  insure  our  ascendency  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,"  [a  hint  concerning 
Cuba,]  and  wind  up  with  expressions  of  "  sympathy"  for  the  [filibus- 
tering ?]  efforts  "  which  are  being  made  by  the  people  of  Central 
America." 

This  platform,  it  will  be  seen,  was  very  skillfully  contrived. 
Many  of  its  elements  were  well  calculated  to  be  popular,  and  es- 
pecially to  please  and  satisfy  the  old  adherents  of  the  party.  The 
seeming  fairness  of  allowing  the  people  of  the  Territory  to  deter- 
mine their  own  institutions,  was  quite  attractive  to  those  who  had 


16  Cincinnati  Platform. 

never  thought  of  taking  the  negro  into  the  account  of  human 
beings,  and  who  had  forgotten  that  majorities  can  not  take  away 
inalienable  rights.  By  no  party  not  planted  upon  these  forgotten 
truths  was  sitch  a  platform  to  be  properly  dissected  and  exposed. 

The  plausibility  of  the  "  Democratic"  plea,  and  the  secret  of  its 
popularity  and  its  power,  even  in  Northern  communities,  may  be 
seen  by  the  following  extract  from  one  of  the  journals  of  that 
party : 

"  It  has  been  the  Democratic  policy  to  regard  the  people  of  a  Territory,  when 
organized  like  the  people  of  a  State,  capable  of  self-government.  No  power  on 
earth  can  prevent  any  State  in  the  Union,  new  or  old,  under  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion, from  becoming  a  slave  State  when  its  people  choose.  It  is,  therefore,  and 
must  ever  remain  a  question  with  the  people  of  a  State  to  dispose  of  for  themselves, 
and  the  Democratic  party  propose  to  leave  the  same  question  with  the  same  peo- 
ple while  yet  a  Territory — regarding  the  people  of  a  Territory  precisely  as  wise 
while  a  Territory  as  they  will  be  when  they  are  the  people  of  a  State.  But  modern 
'  Kepublicanism'  insists  that  Congress  ought  .to  legislate  for  them,  and  this  is  the 
point  in  issue.  Let  those  who  have  confidence  in,  and  those  who  distrust  the  ca- 
pacity of  the  people  for  self-government,  whether  in  a  State  or  a  Territory,  whether 
in  an  old  country  or  in  a  new,  range  themselves  upon  this  question  accordingly. 

"  The  Democrats  will  meet  the  issue  fairly,  directly,  and  boldly,  and  have  no  fear 
for  the  result.  It  was  an  alleged  grievance  by  our  fathers  that  the  British  Parlia- 
ment would  not  permit  them  to  legislate  for  themselves,  but  insisted  on  the  right 
to  legislate  for  them,  when  the  Colonies  held  the  same  relation  to  Parliament  that 
the  Territories  do  to  the  Congress." 

On  the  basis  of  this  argument  it  was  easy  for  this  editor  and  his 
Northern  associates  to  deny  that  either  themselves  or  their  party 
had  any  desire  to  assist  in  extending  the  area  of  slavery.  They 
only  desired,  they  said,  to  preserve  the  constitutional  rights  of  the 
States,  and  the  equal  right  of  the  people  of  the  States  and  of  the 
Territories,  to  self-government.  To  the  charge  of  being  pro-slav- 
ery on  account  of  this  concession,  they  could  give  their  indignant 
denial.  They  only  conceded  the  same  right  to  Kansas  which  the 
"  Republicans"  themselves  conceded  to  Missouri — the  right  of 
maintaining  slavery,  if  they  thought  proper.  If  the  "  Democrats" 
were  to  be  branded  as  pro-slavery,  for  vindicating  this  right  in 
Kansas,  why  might  not  the  "  Republicans"  be  thus  branded,  for 
conceding  it  to  Missouri  ? 

This  was  the  plea.  And  as  the  Republicans  had  conceded  the 
constitutional  right  of  the  States  to  maintain  slavery,  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  Democratic  party,  at  the  North,  believed  their  party 
to  be  no  more  pro-slavery  than  the  Republican.  There  could  be 
no  difference  in  principle,  between  them.  If  it  were  right  to 
allow  slavery  in  one  part  of  the  nation,  it  could  not  be  wrong  to 


What  was  meant  by  the  Cincinnati  Platform?         17 

allow  slavery  in  another  part  of  the  same  nation.  If  the  Consti- 
tution and  State  Rights  ought  to  prevent  Federal  interference  in 
the  one  case,  why  not  in  the  other  ?  The  difference,  at  best,  could 
be  only  in  degree.  The  two  parties  were  agreed  hi  respect  to  the 
proper  treatment  of  all,  or  nearly  all  the  slavery  that  actually 
exists  in  the  country.  The  only  difference  was  in  respect  to  the 
small  remaining  fraction,  and  in  respect  to  the  location  of  future 
increase. 

Whatever  of  fallacy  there  may  be  to  be  detected  in  such  deduc- 
tions from  the  premises  of  "  Constitutional  protection  to  Slavery 
in  the  States  " — premises  held  in  common  by  both  the  contending 
parties — it  may  be  recorded  as  a  historical  fact  that  nothing  but 
the  apparent  force  of  such  reasonings,  on  the  basis  of  the  "  Repub- 
lican "  concessions,  has  saved  the  Northern  wing  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party  from  utter  annihilation.  How  those  reasonings  should 
have  been  met,  is  the  question. 

Another  question,  nevertheless,  returns  to  us: 

WlIAT  WAS   MEANT   BY  THE   CINCINNATI   PLATFORM? 

How  much  was  actually  meant  by  the  apparent  recognition  of 
the  right  of  the  people  of  the  Territories  to  frame  their  own  insti- 
tutions, maybe  learned  by  the  encomiums  bestowed,  by  the  same  Con- 
vention, on  the  administration  of  President  Pierce,  by  whom  the 
Missouri  invaders  had  been  assisted  to  overthrow  that  right,  and 
also  by  their  nomination  of  Mr.  Buchanan,  whose  indorsement  of 
those  acts  of  the  President  was  equally  unequivocal. 

The  hearty  approval  of  the  Editor  of"  the  Richmond  Enquirer, 
Mr.  Ritchie,  by  whom  (as  has  been  shown)  the  doctrine  of  "  Squat- 
ter Sovereignty"  had  been  wholly  repudiated,  and  who  was  a 
member  of  the  Convention,  is  equally  significant.  Immediately 
after  the  Convention,  Mr.  Ritchie  wrote  the  following,  which  ap- 
peared as  editorial  in  that  paper  of  June  6th : 

"With  the  utmost  possible  precision  and  emphasis  of  language,  these  resolutions 
affirm  the  great  vital  principles,  first,  of  the  constitutional  guarantees  of  Slavery; 
and  secondly,  of  the  equality  of  the  States,  with  respect  to  their  sovereign  dignity 
and  political  rights.  In  equally  clear  and  conclusive  terms,  the  doctrine  of  Squat- 
ter Sovereignty  is  repudiated  by  the  platform  of  the  Democratic  party." 

The  Richmond  Enquirer  is  the  leading  Democratic  paper  of  the 
South,  and,  on  this  point,  speaks  the  sentiments  of  leading 
Southern  statesmen  of  all  parties.  No  Northern  Democratic 
statesman,  or  editor  of  any  note,  is  known  to  have  dissented  from 
this  position. 

2 


18  What  was  meant  by  the  Cincinnati  Platform? 

"CAN  ANY  SOUTHERN  MAN  DOUBT  ? — It  is  almost  a  work  of  supererogation  to  offer 
further  proofs  upon  the  entire  soundness  of  James  Buchanan  upon  the  question  of 
the  constitutional  rights  of  the  South.  The  issue  has  been  fully  made,  and,  upon 
argument,  the  South  has  decided  to  cast  her  votes  for  the  Cincinnati  nominees, 
whose  past  history  and  present  attitude  show  them  to  be  thoroughly  reliable. 
What  reason  is  there  for  the  theory  that  Buchanan  is  a  '  sectional '  candidate, 
should  the  whole  South  go  for  him  ?  He  stands  upon  a  platform  of  the  equality  of 
the  States,  and  of  full  and  exact  justice  to  every  section  of  the  Union.  The  plat- 
form and  the  candidates  were  adopted  by  the  vote  of  the  united  Democracy,  re- 
presenting every  district  of  every  State  of  the  Union.  The  Democratic  party  is 
the  only  party  that  maintains  the  same  ground  in  every  State  in  the  Union.  The 
great  features  of  the  Democratic  platform,  which  James  Buchanan  has  fully  and 
squarely  indorsed,  and  of  which  he  is  a  fair  embodiment,  are  the  equal  rights  of  all 
the  States  and  sections,  the  quieting  of  the  anti-Slavery  excitement,  and  the  guar- 
dianship of  the  honor  and  interest  of  the  nation." — Richmond  Enquirer  of  Aug.  21th, 
1856. 

The  following,  from  the  Charleston  (S.  C.)  Mercury,  is  an  ex- 
tract of  a  speech  by  Hon.  Laurence  M.  Keitt,  M.C.  : 

"  Sir,  the  next  contest  will  be  a  momentous  one.  It  will  turn  upon  the  question 
of  Slavery  and  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  South.  The  South  should  establish 
in  the  platform  the  principle  that  the  right  of  a  Southern  man  to  his  slave  is  equal, 
in  its  length  and  breadth,  to  the  right  of  a  Northern  man  to  his  horse.  She 
should  make  the  recognition  of  the  right  full,  complete,  and  indisputable." 

This  shows  the  meaning  of  "State  Equality."  It  means  the 
equal  right  of  Southern  Slaveholders  and  of  Northern  farmers,  to 
take  their  property,  whether  horses  or  negroes,  wherever  they 
please,  and  to  be  equally  protected  by  the  Federal  Government  in 
those  rights ! 

The  Daily  Union  and  American,  (Nashville,  Tenn.,)  May  17th, 
1856,  gives  an  account  of  a  discussion  in  the  State  Legislature  "a 
short  time  previous,"  and  records  the  following : 

"  Messrs.  Baily,  Smith  and  others  went  so  far  as  to  assert,  in  effect,  that  Slavery 
could  only  be  carried  where  it  is  protected  by  local  legislation;  which  is  in  direct 
denial  of  the  doctrine  of  the  South,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  re- 
cognizes Slavery,  and  protects  it  wherever  that  instrument  extends.  These  are  facts, 
hard,  stubborn  facts,  which  no  ingenuity  can  evade,  or  sophistry  pervert." 

This  is  an  explicit  affirmation*  of  the  duty  of  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment to  protect  slave-property,  in  every  part  of  the  United 
States,  by  its  paramount  authority.  And  this  is  affirmed  to  be  "  the 
doctrine  of  the  South."  It  is  certainly  the  doctrine  in  process  of 
enforcement  by  the  Federal  troops  in  Kansas.  It  is  the  doctrine 
of  the  Cincinnati  Democratic  platform,  (as  expounded  by  Mr. 
Ritchie,)  and  of  Mr.  Buchanan,  (who  declared  himself  to  be  the 
platform,)  and  o?  the  party  that  has  supported  Mr.  Buchanan. 


What  was  meant  by  the  Cincinnati  Platform?         19 

This  last  statement,  together  with  its  logical  consequences,  is  em- 
braced fully  in  the  extract  that  follows : 

"  THE  TRUE  ISSUE.— The  Democrats  of  the  South  in  the  pending  canvass  can  not 
rely  on  the  old  grounds  of  apology  and  excuse  for  Slavery ;  for  they  seek  not 
merely  to  retain  it  where  it  is,  but  to  extend  it  into  regions  where  it  is  unknown. 
Much  less  can  they  rely  on  the  mere  constitutional  guarantees  of  Slavery,  for  such 
reliance  is  pregnant  with  the  admission  that  Slavery  is  wrong,  and,  but  for  the 
Constitution,  should  be  abolished.  Nor  will  it  avail  us  aught  to  show  that  tho 
negro  is  most  happy  and  best  situated  in  the  condition  of  Slavery.  If  we  stop 
there,  we  weaken  our  cause  by  the  very  argument  intended  to  advance  it ;  for  wo 
propose  to  introduce  into  new  territory  human  beings  whom  we  assert  to  be 
unfit  for  liberty,  self-government,  and  equal  association  with  other  men.  "We  must 
go  a  step  further.  We  must  show  that  African  Slavery  is  a  moral,  religious,  natu- 
ral, and  probably,  in  the  general,  a  necessary  institution  of  society.  This  is  the 
only  line  of  argument  that  will  enable  Southerners  to  maintain  tho  doctrines  of 
State  Equality  and  Slavery  Extension.  For,  if  Slavery  be  not  a  legitimate,  useful, 
moral,  and  expedient  institution,  we  can  not,  without  reproof  of  conscience  and  the 
blush  of  shame,  seek  to  extend  it,  or  assert  our  equality  with  those  States  having 
no  such  institution. 

"Our  Northern  friends  need  not  go  thus  far.  They  do  not  seek  to  extend  Slav- 
ery, but  only  agree  to  its  extension,  as  a,  matter  of  right  on  our  part.  They  may 
prefer  their  own  social  system  to  ours — it  is  right  that  they  should.  But,  while 
they  may  prefer  their  own  social  system,  they  will  have  to  admit,  in  this  canvass, 
that  ours  is  also  rightful  and  legitimate,  and  sanctioned  alike  by  the  opinions  and 
usages  of  mankind,  and  by  the  authority  and  express  injunctions  of  Scripture. 
They  can  not  consistently  maintain  that  Slavery  is  immoral,  inexpedient,  and  pro- 
fane, and  yet  continue  to  submit  to  its  extension.  We  know  that  we  utter  bold 
truths,  but  the  time  has  arrived  when  their  utterance  can  be  no  longer  suppressed. 
Tho  true  issue  should  stand  out  in  bold  relief,  so  that  none  may  mistake  it." — Rich- 
mond Enquirer  of  June  IQth,  1856. 

It  can  not  be  mistaken,  except  by  those  who  refuse  information. 
It  will  be  found  instructive  to  follow  these  developments  still 
further : 

"The  ensuing  Presidential  canvass  will  turn  almost  solely  on  the  question  of 
Equality.  None  can  consistently  or  effectively  contend  for  State  Equality  who  do 
not  hold  that  the  institutions  of  the  South  are  equally  rightful,  legitimate,  moral, 
and  promotive  of  human  happiness  with  those  of  the  North.  If  slave  society  be 
inferior  in  these  respects  to  free  society,  we  of  the  South  are  wrong  and  criminal 
in  proposing  to  extend  it  to  new  territory,  and  the  North  right  in  exerting  itself  to 
the  utmost  to  prevent  such  extension.  But  I  go  further:  We  must  contend  ours 
is  the  best  form  of  society ;  for  social  organisms  so  opposite  as  those  of  the  North 
and  the  South,  can  not  be  equally  well  suited  to  people  in  all  other  respects  so 
exactly  alike.  We  must  surrender  the  doctrine  of  State  Equality  and  Slavery 
extension,  unless  we  are  prepared  to  meet  the  attacks  of  Black  Republicanism 
on  our  institutions,  by  making  equally  vigorous  assaults  on  theirs.  The  President, 
in  his  Annual  Message,  has  clearly  indicated  this  as  the  proper  mode  of  defense — 
the  true  answer  to  Abolition."—  Charleston  (S.  <7.)  Mercury  of  April  Is*,  1856. 


20  What  was  meant  by  the  Cincinnati  Platform? 

This  is  tendering  to  us  the  "  true  issue."  Those  who  tell  us  that 
we  must  meet  the  "issues"  as  presented  to  us  by  the  Slave- 
holders, (meaning  the  bare  issue  of  Freedom  or  Slavery  in  Kan 
sas,)  would  do  well  to  learn,  more  correctly,  what  the'  "  issues  " 
presented  to  us,  really  are.  Of  the  popularity  and  progress  of  the 
"State  Equality"  doctrine,  the  following  account  is  presented 
to  us  : 

'STATE  EQUALITY.  —  This  new  doctrine  is  the  most  popular  ever  broached  by  a 
political  party.  In  its  application  to  our  Territories,  it  was  formally  suggested  but 
a  few  months  since.  Yet  it  already  commands  the  cheerful,  unhesitating,  and 
cordial  assent  of  the  Democracy  of  the  country,  who  constitute  a  majority  of  the 
people,  and  is,  besides,  approved  by  every  man  with  a  Southern  heart  in  his 
bosom,  no  matter  to  what  party  he  belongs.  Many  men,  loyal  to  the  South, 
thought  it  unsafe  to  repeal  the  Missouri  Compromise.  They  can  think  so  no 
longer,  for  that  Compromise  never  did  give  satisfaction  to  North  or  South.  The 
North  violated  it  in  the  case  of  California,  and  originated  a  party  (the  Freo- 
Soilers)  whose  motto  was,  no  more  Slave  Territory.  It  was  the  fruitful  parent  of 
Abolition,  because  it  contained  and  asserted  Abolition.  If  Government  might 
and  should  prohibit  Slavery  north  of  36°  30'  it  might  and  should  prohibit 
it  in  all  the  Territories.  If  Slavery  was  wrong  and  inxpedient  in  the  Territories,  it 
was  equally  wrong  and  inexpedient  in  the  States.  There  is  no  excuse  left  to  any 
Southern  man,  whatever,  to  complain  of  the  repeal  of  the  Compromise.  The  Cin- 
cinnati Convention  leaves  no  room  to  doubt  that  the  principle  of  State  Equality 
surpasses  that  Compromise  in  popularity,  North  and  South. 

"  "We  rejoice  that  the  great  issue  in  the  canvass  will  turn  on  this  doctrine,  bo- 
cause  it  will  force  the  South  into  defending  Slavery  on  principle.  She  contends 
now  for  its  equal  extension  with  other  social  forms,  and  must  contend  that  it  is 
equally  worthy  of  extension.  Her  old  grounds  of  apology  and  excuse  will  avail 
her  nothing.  She  must  examine  history  and  statistics,  and  prove  that  Slaves  are 
as  well  provided  for,  as  happy  and  contented  in  the  general,  as  hired  laborers. 
She  can  easily  show  that  they  are  better  off  in  all  these  respects  than  hirelings, 
and,  besides,  far  less  addicted  to  crime.  She  must  also  show  that  Slave-owners 
are  the  equals  in  morality,  piety,  courage  and  intelligence,  to  bosses  and  em- 
ployers. It  will  be  easy  to  prove  that  they  are  their  superiors.  It  will  only 
remain  for  her  to  show  that  the  Bible  sanctions  Slavery,  and  the  victory  will 
be  complete."  —  Richmond  Enquirer  of  June  13to,  1856. 


"If  Slavery  was  wrong  and  inexpedient  in  the  Territories,  it 
was  equally  wrong  and  inexpedient  in  the  States."  —  True.  And 
if  the  Federal  Government  is  not  to  protect  it  in  the  Territories, 
it  must  not  protect  it  in  the  States.  The  Slaveholders  understand 
the  issue.  Why  can  it  not  be  understood  by  the  statesmen  op- 
posed to  them  ? 

Under  the  head  of  "The  Slavery  Agitation,"  the  Richmond 
Enquirer  of  Sept.  8th,  1856,  says: 

"  Obviously,  the  omy  mode  of  combating  a  party  possessed  with  such  a  passion, 
and  pursuing  so  relentless  a  policy,  is  to  accept  its  own  desperate  terms,  and  deter- 


What  was  meant  by  the  Cincinnati  Platform?  21 

min«,  once  for  all,  the  issue  in  controversy.  The  Democracy  have  adopted  this 
plan,  and  have  promulgated  it  with  all  the  authority  of  their  great  Convention. 
The  principles  at  the  basis  of  the  Anti-Slavery  (Republican)  organization,  could  not 
be  more  directly  and  boldly  controverted  than  they  are  controverted  in  the  Democratic 
Platform.  The  conservation  and  constitutionalism  of  the  South  could  not  have  a  more 
fit  and  significant  representative  than  James  Buchanan.  As  the  creed  of  the  party 
clearly  affirms  the  Equality  of  the  States,  and  the  illegality  of  any  Federal  restriction  on 
the  rights  of  the  South,  so  does  its  candidate  declare  his  approval  of  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  and  commit  himself  to  the  support  of  all  the  guarantees  of 
Slavery  in  the  Union  and  under  the  Constitution." 

As  a  commentary  on  this  affirmed  "  illegality  of  any  Federal 
restriction  on  the  rights  of"  slaveholding,  we  present  evidence 
that  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  was  designed  to  establish  slavery  in 
those  Territories  by  Federal  interference,  and  that  any  emigration 
into  them  by  free-State  men,  is  deemed  a  reprehensible  attempt  to 
defeat  the  purposes  of  that  Act.  In  reply  to  Hon.  Mr.  Sumner,  of 
Massachusetts,  Hon.  John  J.  Evans,  Senator  from  South-Carolina, 
June  23,  said : 

"  Well,  sir,  Kansas,  although  it  is  but  one  State,  when  added,  will  be  good 
against  three  more.  And  was  it  strange,  then,  that  the  South  should  desire  pos- 
session of  Kansas,  merely  as  a  guaranty  ?  These,  Mr.  President,  are  the  reasons 
why  we  desire  Kansas ;  but  it  was  not  allowed.  The  very  instant  it  was  opened 
to  the  Slave  population,  that  instant  there  sprung  up  a  contrivance,  a  machinery 
was  set  in  operation,  of  which  I  do  not  choose  to  speak — the  object  of  which  was 
to  defeat  this  act  of  Congress,  and,  as  was  said  by  the  Senator  from  Massachusetts, 
to  devote  this  Territory  to  a  free  population." 

This  shot  was  levelled  at  the  Emigrant  Aid  Societies  of  New- 
England.  The  President  and  his  Secretary,  Mr.  Marcy — his  par- 
tisans in  Congress,  the  presses  supporting  the  Administration,  all 
over  the  country,  have  denounced  them.  But  why  so  f  If  "  the 
Southern  man  with  his  slave,  and  the  Northern  man  with  his  horse, 
are  to  be  equally  protected" — where  was  the  offense  of  Northern 
emigration  ?  It  was  this.  A  population  of  free  laborers,  as  was 
proved  in  California,  would  vote  to  exclude  slave-labor.  And  so 
the  Border  Ruffians,  by  the  aid  of  Gov.  Shannon  and  Gov.  Geary, 
must  virtually  exclude  them.  "  State  equality,"  it  seems,  is  only 
to  be  realized  by  making  all  the  States  "  equal"  in  their  "  equal 
protection"  of  slaveholding — their  equal  claim  to  the  Federal  pro- 
tection of  slave  property.  Does  any  one  doubt  that  this  is  the 
true  rendering  ?  Let  him  examine  what  follows. 

Hon.  A.  G.  Brown,  of  Mississippi,  in  a  speech  in  the  U.  S.  Senate, 
April  28,  1856,  says: 

"The  advocates  of  State  Rights  have  always  held  that  the  Territories  are  the 
common  property  of  the  States ;  that  one  State  has  the  same  interest  in  them  as 


22  What  was  meant  by  the  Cincinnati  Platform  f 

another ;  and  that  the  citizen  of  one  State  has  the  same  right  to  go  to  them  as  a 
citizen  of  any  other  State.  The  corollary,  therefore,  has  been  that  a  citizen  of  <my 
one  State  has  the  same  right  as  the  citizen  of  any  other  State  to  go  into  the  Terri- 
tories, and  take  with  him  whatever  is  recognized  as  property  in  the  State  from  which 
he  goes.  Thus,  if  a  citizen  of  Massachusetts  may  go  and  take  with  him  a  bale  of 
goods,  a  citizen  of  Tennessee  may  go  and  take  a  barrel  of  whiskey ;  and  if  a  citizen 
of  New- York  may  go  and  take  a  horse,  a  citizen  of  Mississippi  may  go  and  take  a 
slave.  It  must  be  so,  or  else  the  equality  of  the  parties  is  destroyed.  Tennessee 
becomes  inferior  to  Massachusetts,  and  the  rights  of  the  Mississippian  are  inferior 
to  those  of  the  New-Yorker." 

This  might  be  good  logic,  in  favor  of  the  protection  of  slave 
property,  5  man  were  a  legitimate  subject  of  ownership,  like  "  a 
bale  of  goods,"  or  "  a  horse."  The  "  issue"  presented  by  the  pro- 
slavery  "  Democracy,"  in  the  Presidential  Election  of  the  present 
year,  involved,  emphatically,  that  question.  And  it  ought  not  to 
have  been  blinked  by  their  opponents.  Mr.  Brown,  above  quoted, 
visited  Mr.  Buchanan  to  inform  him  of  his  nomination,  and  said 
of  him,  in  a  letter  to  Hon.  S.  R.  Adams  (published  hi  the  Rich- 
mond Enquirer  of  Aug.  27) — "  In  my  judgment,  he  is  as  worthy  of 
Southern  confidence  and  Southern  votes,  as  Mr.  Calhoun  ever  was." 

This  is  not  exclusively  Southern  doctrine.  Hon.  John  Cadwala- 
der,  of  Pennsylvania,  a  leading  Democrat  and  an  intimate  friend 
of  Mr.  Buchanan,  in  a  speech  in  the  Hall  of  Congress,  March  5, 
said: 

'  But  as  the  Mexican  laws  locally  in  force  had  excluded  slavery  from  these  Terri- 
tories, (the  Territories  acquired  from  Mexico,)  the  application  of  this  principle  to 
them  was  illusory,  so  far  as  any  possibility  of  participation  in  their  further  settle- 
ment by  slaveholders  might  be  concerned.  Property  in  slaves  was  thus  in  effect 
excluded  wholly  from  their  limits.  The  principle  of  the  former  partitions  having 
become  inapplicable,  and  slaveholding  settlers  having  been  altogether  excluded 
from  this  Territory,  the  slaveholding  States  were,  of  right,  entitled  to  an  indemnifi- 
cation for  their  loss,  if  it  could  be  afforded,  by  giving  to  them  access  with  their 
slaves  to  other  territory.  This  principle  was  the  moral  basis  of  that  praiseworthy 
legislation  of  1854" — the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise."* 

Thus  openly  is  it  avowed  by  a  Northern  "  Democrat"  that  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  bill  was  designed  to  introduce  slavery  into  free 
Territory.  And  this  he  denominates  "  praiseworthy  legislation" ! 


*  For  these  extracts  we  are  indebted  to  an  able  article,  in  the  N.  Y.  Tribwe, 
Oct.  20,  by  Johnson  H.  Jordan,  dated  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


Extent  of  the  Pro-slavery  Claim.  23 


EXTESTT   OF  THE  PRO-SLAVERY    CLAIM. 

We  have  made  these  copious  quotations,  in  order  to  exhibit 
fully  and  clearly  the  precise  shape  and  form  of  the  Constitutional 
theories  upon  which  the  pro-slavery  party,  miscalled  "Democratic," 
had  planted  itself,  in  the  Presidential  contest  of  the  present  year. 
Briefly  stated,  it  embraces  the  following  positions : 

1.  Slavery  exists,  legally,  in  this  country,  not  in  virtue  of  local, 
municipal  legislation,  but  by  natural  right,  or  by  the  authority  of 
custom. 

2.  It  therefore  exists  (as  is  claimed  by  the  slaveholders)  without 
limitation  as  to  race  or  color — and  without  limitation  of  geographi- 
cal position.     Both  these  conditions  result  from  its  existing  inde- 
pendently of  local  statute. 

3.  The  "States"  have  the  independent  right  of  maintaining  this 
"  institution,"  without  the  interference  of  the  General  Government. 

4.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  recognizes  this  institu- 
tion, and  the  Federal  Government  is  bound  to  protect  it,  equally, 
in  all  parts  of  the  country. — Consequently; 

5.  Though  "  State  Rights"  and  "  State  Sovereignty"  include  the 
right  of  maintaining  slavery,  they  do  not  include  the  right  to 
abolish  or  exclude  it. 

6.  The  States  are  equal : — as  having  an  equal  right  to  maintain 
slavery — also,  they  are  equal  in  having  no  right  to  exclude  it. 

7.  Every  slaveholder  has  a  right  to  demand  Federal  protection 
in  carrying  his  slave  property  into  every  part  of  the  country. 

And  this  is  called  "  State  Equality"  and  "  State  Rights" !  To 
oppose  this  universal  Federal  protection  of  slavery,  is  to  oppose 
"  State  Sovereignty"  and  "  State  Rights" !  It  is  to  "  consolidate" 
the  Federal  Government,  and  make  it  an  engine  for  oppressing  the 
inoffensive  slaveholders !  But  no  violation  of  State  Rights  is  to  be 
feared,  and  no  danger  of  "  consolidation"  from  the  Federal  protec- 
tion of  slavery  hi  all  the  States ! 

This  may  seem  like  a  caricature.  And  it  may  be  doubted  whe- 
ther this  is  a  fair  representation  of  the  "  Democratic"  platform. 
But,  if  it  be  a  caricature,  it  is  a  caricature  drawn  by  their  own 
leading  statesmen  and  editors — a  caricature  which,  in  each  of  its 
enumerated  seven  features,  will  be  claimed  to  be  a  truthful  like- 
ness, by  the  leaders  of  the  Southern  wing  of  the  party,  by  whom 
the  entire  party  is  controlled.  Very  certainly,  and  very  explicitly, 
they  claim  that  the  slaveholders  have  a  Constitutional  right  to  take 
their  slave  property  into  the  Territories,  and  to  be  protected  in 


24  How  has  the  Claim  been  met  f 

that  right.  This  principle,  as  well  as  the  decision  of  Judge  Kane, 
and  the  claim  of  Virginia  as.  New-York,  extends  the  demand  to 
the  free  States,  likewise.  And  this  amounts  to  a  denial  of  any 
Constitutional  right  in  the  States,  to  prohibit  slavery.  The  pro- 
posed reopening  of  the  African  Slave  Trade,  by  Act  of  Congress, 
involves  the  same  doctrine,  since  it  would  doubtless  be  held  that 
no  State  could  exclude  slaves,  if  their  importation  were  Constitu- 
tionally authorized  by  the  Federal  Government. 


How  HAS  THE  CLAIM  BEEN  MET? 

The  Republican  party  very  properly  repudiates  the  claim,  and 
very  earnestly  places  itself  in  opposition  to  it.  But,  on  what  prin- 
ciples, and  by  what  process  of  argumentation  does  it  seek  to  enlist 
the  people  against  it  ?  It  is  one  thing  to  come  into  Court  with  a 
just  cause.  It  is  quite  another  thing  to  vindicate  that  just  cause 
by  a  sound  and  available  plea.  Many  a  good  cause  is  lost,  in 
Court,  by  being  defended  on  an  indefensible  basis.  Public  senti- 
ment,  in  civilized  communities,  especially  in  Republics,  constitutes 
the  highest  Court  of  Appeal.  And  Presidential  Elections,  once  in 
four  years,  constitute  the  grand  political  assizes  of  that  Court.  It 
is  not  enough  to  declaim  vehemently  and  eloquently  against  the  mon- 
strous results  of  the  theory  in  question.  Revolting  and  abhorrent  as 
are  those  results,  to  those  by  whom  they  are  clearly  apprehended, 
the  theory  that  covers  it  up  and  sustains  it,,  is  not  wanting  in*  plausi- 
bility and  attractiveness  to  those  who  look  only  at  the  surface,  who 
are  captivated  by  specious  names,  and  who  are  not  easily  persuaded 
to  believe  that  the  results  attributed  to  those  theories  are  realities. 
The  sophistry  must  be  unravelled.  The  cheatery  must  be  exposed. 
And  this  must  be  done  by  separating,  correctly,  the  Truth  from 
the  Falsehood,  and  showing  that  unmixed  Truth  not  only  leads  to 
opposite  conclusions,  but  is  the  very  opposite  of  the  theory  that 
has  been  made  to  appear  so  attractive. 

It  will  avail  nothing  to  rely,  as  some  do,  upon  the  conclusion 
that  legislative  bodies  and  masses  of  voters,  being  already  wed- 
ded to  their  parties,  are  not  to  be  benefited  by  correct  reason- 
ings, nor  injured  by  sophistry.  Courts  and  juries  are  not  always 
governed  by  correct  reasonings,  but  the  lawyer  who,  on  that  ac- 
count, should  be  incautious  hi  his  arguments,  would  be  very  liable 
to  make  wreck  of  the  most  righteous  cause. 

The  theory  of  the  pro-slavery  party  must  be  met,  confronted, 
and  overthrown,  on  solid  ground — on  the  basis  of  TETJTH  :  and  no 


f   G- 

How  has  the  Claim  been  met  f  25 

other  method  will  be  found  effectual  in  the  end.  Has  that  theory 
been  thus  met  by  the  "  Republican"  party  ? 

That  theory,  as  we  have  exhibited  it,  reposes  upon  these  two 
premises  :  First.  That  Slavery  is  constitutionally  entitled  to  Fed- 
eral protection  in  the  States  wherein  it  already  exists.  Second. 
That  the  States  are  equal  with  each  other,  and  that  they  are  to 
be  treated  as  having  equal  rights. 

These  are  the  premises.  The  conclusions  have  been  already 
described. 

How  are  these  premises  to  be  treated  ?  Are  they  both  to  be 
admitted  ?  If  so,  how  shall  we  avoid  the  conclusion  ?* 

Are  they  both  to  be  rejected  ?  Would  such  rejection  be  in 
accordance  with  truth  ?  Or,  can  the  public  sentiment  of  the 
country  be  led  to  a  rejection  of  both  of  them  ? 

If  it  would  be  a  surrendry  of  the  cause  of  freedom  in  Kansas 
and  elsewhere,  to  admit  both  the  premises — and  if  it  be  neither 
truthful  nor  available  to  deny  both  of  them — it  remains  to  inquire 
which  of  the  two  should  be  admitted,  and  which  should  be  denied? 


*  The  conclusion  drawn  by  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  it  may  be  thought,  does 
not  follow  legitimately  from  these  premises.  The  Constitutional  right  of  the  slave- 
holder to  be  protected  in  his  property,  in  a  State  wherein  Slavery  exists  under  the 
shield  of  State  sovereignty,  (it  may  be  said,)  does  not  clothe  him  with  the  right  to 
be  protected  in  that  property  when  he  removes  it  into  a  sovereign  State  wherein 
Slavery  is  not  established. 

This  plea  might  stand,  if  the  assumed  right  to  hold  slaves  rested  on  State  legis- 
lation, or  local,  municipal,  positive  law.  But  it  does  not.  That  claim  is  abjured  by 
the  slaveholder.  And  consequently,  his  right  of  slaveholding,  if  he  has  any,  is  not 
to  be  restricted  by  it.  If  his  right  is  to  be  recognized  at  all,  it  is  to  be  recognized 
upon  the  foundation  upon  which  he  places  it,  and  upon  no  other.  He  places  it 
upon  natural  right,  which  claim,  if  admitted,  allows  no  restriction  to  State  bounda- 
ries. 

It  may  be  inquired,  further,  how  the  doctrine  "  State  equality"  affects  the 
rights  of  the  individual  citizens  of  States  ? 

The  answer  is,  that  the  rights  of  the  State  are  nothing  distinct  from  (or,  at  least, 
they  include)  the  rights  of  its  citizens.  At  all  events,  the  right  claimed  in  this 
case  is,  primarily,  the  right  of  the  individual.  If  the  right  be  satisfactorily  recog- 
nized and  protected,  the  State,  too,  is  satisfied ;  but  not  otherwise. 

If  the  States  are  equal,  and  may  claim  equal  protection  from  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment, then  their  subjects  may  claim  equal  protection.  If  a  citizen  of  Missouri 
is  entitled  to  Federal  protection  in  his  right  of  slaveholding,  then  (the  States  being 
equal)  a  citizen  of  Kansas  or  of  Iowa,  is  entitled  to  the  same  protection.  And  if 
a  citizen  of  Missouri,  holding  slaves,  removes  with  them  into  Kansas  or  Iowa,  he 
forfeits  not  that  same  protection.  For  the  citizen  of  one  State  has  equal  rights  in 
another  State. 

Such  is  the  Southern  idea.  The  question  is,  how  to  meet  it,  without  denying, 
in  toto,  the  Constitutional  right  of  slaveholding  ? 


26  How  has  the  Claim  been  met  f 

Shall  we  admit  that  Slavery  is  constitutionally  entitled  to  Fed- 
eral protection  in  the  States  wherein  it  exists  ?  And  shall  we 
avoid  the  conclusion  that  Slavery  is  everywhere  entitled  to  Fed- 
eral protection,  by  pleading  that  the  States  are  not  equal  ?  That 
the  original  States  have  rights  to  the  Federal  protection  of  Slavery, 
which  can  not  be  claimed  by  the  new  States,  admitted  afterwards  ? 
That  the  Federal  Government  may  impose  conditions  on  the  new 
States,  which  shall  place  them  on  a  different  footing,  in  this  re- 
spect, from  the  old? 

This  has  been  the  position  of  those — with  few  exceptions — who, 
in  our  national  councils,  have  opposed  the  admission  of  new  Slave 
States.  But  is  it  in  accordance  with  truth  ?  The  Constitution 
says  that  new  States  may  be  admitted.  But  does  it  say  that  con- 
ditions not  involved  hi  the  Constitution,  nor  binding  on  the  other 
States,  may  be  imposed  upon  them,  aa  conditions  of  their  admis- 
sion? Does  it  make  provision  for  having  some  States  with  a 
Constitutional  right  to  maintain  Slavery,  and  for  having  some  other 
States  without  any  such  Constitutional  right  ?  These  questions 
have  been  urged  by  the  Slavery  party.  And  have  they  ever  been 
met  by  their  "  Republican"  opponents,  and  answered  ?*  Have  the 
opponents  of  Slavery  extension,  on  the  basis  commonly  occupied 
by  them,  maintained  their  ground  ?  Have  they  not  themselves 
virtually  receded  from  it  ?  The  "  Free-Soil "  party  and  the  "  Free 
Democracy  "  raised  the  flag  of  "  No  more  Slave  States."  But  the 
Republican  Convention  at  Pittsburg  refused  to  raise  it,  and  the 
Philadelphia  Convention  neglected  to  do  so.  It  is  not  to  be  found 
in  either  of  those  two  platforms. 

Is  it  retained,  in  respect  to  the  Territories  ?  If  so,  how,  and  on 
what  grounds,  and  to  what  good  purpose  is  it  retained  ?  Con- 
gress, it  is  said,  can  exclude  Slavery  from  the  Territories.  "  But 
how,"  demands  the  Slavery  party,  "  can  Congress  exclude  Slavery 
from  the  Territories,  if  it  is  to  be  protected  hi  the  States  fn 

The  only  answer  to  this  is,  that  Slavery  is  to  be  protected  only 
in  the  States  wherein  it  already  exists,  by  force  of  municipal,  local, 
positive  law.  But  Slavery  does  NOT  THUS  exist,  in  any  one  of  the 


*  "  Republicans"  have  said  that  the  admission  or  rejection  of  new  States  is  left 
to  the  discretion  of  Congress.  And  from  this  they  infer  that  Congress  may  impose 
conditions  of  admission.  Admitting  this  to  bo,  technically,  correct,  the  practical 
question  returns :  Is  it  probable  that  a  people  who  permit  Slavery  in  some  of  the 
States,  will  perseveringly  refuse  to  permit  it  in  other  States  ?  "Will  they  consider 
it  fair  to  do  so  ?  If  they  will  bend  conscience  to  expediency  hi  the  one  case,  will 
they  not  in  the  other  ?  What  are  the  lessons  of  experience  on  this  subject  ? 


How  has  the  Claim  been  met  f  27 

States.  The  Slave  States  do  not  pretend  it.  The  slaveholders  do 
not.  They  deny  the  statement,  and  repudiate  every  thing  of  the 
kind. 

Will  it  be  insisted,  on  the  other  side,  that  Slavery  in  the  Slave 
States  does  thus  exist,  notwithstanding  the  disclaimers  of  the  slave- 
holders? And  notwithstanding  the  absence,  in  all  the  Slave 
States,  of  any  law  which  ordains  and  establishes  Slavery?  It 
seems  a  gratuity  to  concede  to  them  a  right  of  slaveholding  on 
grounds  which  they  disclaim  and  repudiate!  Such  concession 
becomes  a  nullity  and  a  farce. 

It  remains  that  if  the  opponents  of  Slavery  extension  are  to  con- 
cede, on  any  grounds,  the  Constitutional  right  of  the  slaveholders 
to  Federal  protection,  hi  the  States  wherein  it  already  exists,  they 
must  concede  the  right,  on  the  only  grounds  on  which  the  slave- 
holders tlwmselves  claim  it.  They  can  concede  it  on  no  other 
grounds.  The  concession  could  not  be  accepted  on  any  other 
grounds. 

But  to  concede  the  right  of  slaveholding  on  the  grounds  upon 
which  it  is  claimed,  is  to  concede  it  as  a  natural  right — the  same 
right  by  which  men  hold  horses  and  oxen,  and  all  kinds  of  legiti- 
mate property.  And  to  concede  it,  on  this  ground,  is  to  concede 
the  right  of  holding  slave  property  in  all  the  Territories,  and  in  all 
the  States,  and  also  the  claim  of  Federal  protection  for  that  right. 

So  that,  if  the  right  of  slave  property  to  Federal  protection, 
anywliere,  is  to  be  admitted,  the  right  is  to  be  admitted  everywhere. 
For  this,  and  nothing  else,  is  the  right  claimed.  To  concede 
another  right,  which  is  not  claimed,  is  evading  the  issue.  It  is  not 
meeting  the  question.* 


*  It  may  still  be  insisted  that  the  slaveholder's  claim  might,  possibly,  be  a  sound 
and  valid  one,  resting  on  some  basis  of  which  the  slaveholder  is  himself  ignorant, 
and  which  he  repudiates,  so  that  his  claim  is  not  to  be  sot  aside  by  merely  dis- 
proving Ms  idea  of  its  basis.  Be  it  so.  It  then  remains  for  those  who  gratuitously 
recognize  the  validity  of  his  claim  to  tell  us  on  what  basis  it  rests,  in  their  minds. 
And  here  they  will  find  themselves  shut  up  to  a  choice  of  one  of  the  three  following 
alternatives,  namely:  1.  They  must  find  some  positive  municipal  law,  establishing 
Slavery,  and  donning  who  aro  slaves ;  they  must  produce  the  statute,  and  tell 
when,  where,  by  whom,  and  by  what  competent  authority  it  was  enacted;  or 
2.  They  must  maintain  with  Judge  McLean,  that  long-continued  usage  is  a  suffi- 
cient basis  for  Slavery ;  or  else,  3.  They  must  adopt  the  latest  and  most  highly 
approved  Southern  theory,  that  Slavery  exists  by  the  law  of  the  strongest,  which 
they  call  "natural  right." 

This  last  theory,  as  already  observed,  carries  Slavery  at  once  into  the  Territories, 
on  the  same  tenure  by  which  it  already  exists  in  the  States;  the  second  concedes 


28  How  has  ike  Claim  been  met  f 

Besides  this,  it  is  generally  held,  on  all  hands,  that  if  the  old 
Slave  States  have  the  right  to  maintain  Slavery,  then,  whatever 
conditions  may  be  imposed  upon  a  State  in  order  to  its  admission, 
the  State  has  full  power  to  control  itself  afterwards.  It  may  be 
admitted  on  the  condition  of  its  having  an  Anti-Slavery  Constitu- 
tion. The  condition  of  admission  may  be  complied  with  at  the 
time.  But  as  soon  as  admitted,  the  State  may  change  its  Consti- 
tution and  establish  Slavery.  And  that  Slavery  then  conies  under 
Federal  protection,  just  as  in  the  old  Slave  States,  which  renders 
the  process  of  Anti-Slavery  restriction  a  mere  nullity,  a  farce, 
except  for  the  short  time  intervening  before  the  Territory  is  admit- 
ted as  a  State.  If  any  of  those  who  hold  the  constitutional  right 
of  the  old  Slave  States  to  maintain  Slavery  dissent  from  this,  we 
are  yet  to  be  apprized  of  the  fact. 

And  thus  the  doctrine  of  "  State  Equality  " — so  much  gloried 
in  by  the  Slavery  party,  and  even  hailed  as  a  new  discovery — the 
doctrine  of  "  State  Equality,"  so  much  denounced  by  the  opposers 
of  Slavery  extension,  is  found  to  have  gamed  its  firm  foothold  in 
our  national  politics  already. 

This  is  seen  in  the  abandonment,  by  the  "non-extension  "  party 
of  the  motto  of  "  No  more  Slave  States."  It  was  seen  during  the 
debate  on  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  and  in  the  final  vote  on  that 
question.  This  has  been  seen,  too,  in  the  strong  vote  given,  at 
the  North,  for  the  candidate  of  the  delusive  and  wicked  Cincinnati 
platform,  and  in  the  election  of  members  of  Congress.  The  "  De- 
mocracy," as  it  calls  itself,  appeared  strong  in  its  seeming  vindi- 
cation of  "State  Equality"  and  "State  Rights."  There  was  a 
guilty  sophistry  at  the  bottom  of  it,  which  tens  and  hundreds  of 
thousands  failed  to  detect — and  failed  because  it  was  not  properly 


It  is  always  a  difficult  task  to  convince  men  that  the  political  party, 
to  which  they  are  attached,  and  with  which  they  have  long  acted, 
has  become  wholly  recreant  to  justice  and  liberty.  So  long  as  the 
designing  leaders  of  the  party  can  dress  up  plausible  platforms, 
covering  up  the  practical  iniquity  with  maxims  of  abstract  equity, 
so  long  they  can  usually  succeed  in  hood-winking  the  great  mass 
of  their  partisans.  And  the  designs  of  such  leaders  receive  the 
most  effective  assistance  from  opponents  who  place  their  oppo- 


that  it  may  be  done  by  lapse  of  time;  and  the  first,  that  it  may,  at  any  time,  be 
done  by  a  majority,  if  not  by  an  oligarchy. 

The  question  is,  whether  Slavery  extension  is  to  be  warded  oflj  in  the  use  of 
either  of  these  theories. 


How  has  the  Claim  been  met  f  29 

sition  upon  false  grounds,  and  even  go  so  far  as  to  deny  or  deride 
the  abstract  truths  which  they  should  concede,  while  they  concede 
the  very  core  and  pith  of  the  practical  falsehoods  they  should 
condemn  and  expose. 

Such,  unhappily,  have  been  the  arguments,  that,  for  the  most 
part,  have  been  urged  against  the  propagandists  of  Slavery, 
against  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  against  the  administration  of  Pre- 
sident Pierce,  and  against  the  platform  and  nominees  of  the  Cin- 
cinnati Democratic  Convention.  Such  has  been  the  course  of  the 
Free-Soil  party,  the  Free  Democracy,  the  Republican  party,  and 
their  leading  men.  Instead  of  denying  the  Constitutional  right 
of  the  old  Slave  States  to  the  Federal  protection  of  their  Slavery, 
they  have  conceded  that  iniquitous  claim,  and  have  denied  the 
equitable  and  Constitutional  equality  of  the  States.  Instead  of 
denying  the  Constitutional  right,  either  of  the  Territories  or  of 
the  new  States,  to  maintain  Slavery,  and  denying  also,  that  the 
old  Slave  States  ever  had  any  such  right,  they  have  derided 
the  right  of  the  people  of  the  Territories  to  govern  themselves, 
and  have  insisted  (until  quite  recently)  that  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment alone  hold  that  prerogative.  They  have  thus  carried  on 
their  political  campaign  under  the  double  disadvantage  of  con- 
ceding the  iniquitous  falsehoods  they  should  have  contended 
against,  and  of  contending  against  the  evident  truths  that  they 
should  have  maintained.* 

*  Since  this  and  the  preceding  paragraphs  were  put  in  type,  we  have  met  with 
several  indications  of  a  discovery  by  Kepublican  leaders,  and  by  friends  of  Kansas, 
that  the  controversy  as  conducted,  has  been  a  failure,  and  will  continue  to  be  so. 
Senator  Collamer  has  made  a  speech  "  showing  that  Congress  has  full  power  over 
the  Territories."  The  N.  Y.  Times  calls  it  "  LOGIC  WASTED."  "  Whatever  the  elec- 
tion may  or  may  not  have  settled,  it  has  settled  this.  And  no  future  event  can  be 
more  certain,  in  our  judgment,  than  that  Congress  will  not,  during  the  next  four 
years,  exert  any  such  power.  The  verdict  of  the  people  has  been,  substantially,  in 
favor  of  popular  sovereignty,  at  aU  events  against  the  exercise  of  Congressional  sove- 
reignty over  the  Territories,  in  this  respect" 

To  which  we  add  the  inquiry,  whether  'that  the  verdict  is  likely  to  be  reversed, 
until  the  advocates  of  restriction  cease  conceding  the  right  of  the  Slave  States  to 
maintain  Slavery.  In  the  popular  mind,  will  not  the  right  of  the  people  in  the  Ter- 
ritories, in  this  particular,  be  always  considered  the  same  as  the  right  of  the  people 
of  the  States  t 

The  Herald  of  Freedom,  by  G-.  W.  Brown  &  Co.,  Lawrence,  Kansas,  expresses  its 
views  of  Territorial  rights,  and  its  appreciation  of  the  "  Kepublican"  mode  of  sup- 
porting them,  in  terms  not  easily  mistaken.  Under  the  head  of  "  NOT  DECIDED," 
it  copies  from  a  Eepublican  paper  as  follows : 

"REMEMBER  that  the  election  on  Thursday  nextj  decides  whether  freedom  or 
slavery  is  the  fate  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  and  all  the  unoccupied  territory  west 
of  them. — Eastern  Exchange  before  election, 


30  How  has  the  Claim  been  met  f 

They  placed  themselves  in  the  attitude  of  self-confutation,  by 
doing  this.  Their  denial  of  the  right  of  Slaveholders  to  the 
Federal  protection  of  their  Slaveholding  in  Kansas,  stood  con 
fronted  by  their  concession  of  that  pretended  right  to  the  Slave- 
holders of  Missouri.  Their  vindication  of  the  rights  of  the  Free 
settlers  in  Kansas,  to  establish  free  institutions  without  inter- 
ference from  the  Federal  Government,  stood  check-mated  by  their 
sneers  at  popular  or  "  Squatter  Sovereignty "  in  Kansas,  and  by 
their  constantly  reiterated  claim  that  Slaveholding  (which  they 
admitted  to  be  entitled  to  Federal  protection  in  the  States)  should 
be  prohibited  by  the  Federal  authorities,  as  a  crime,  in  Kansas !  * 

To  which  the  Herald  of  Freedom  responds :  "  The  election  decided  no  such 
question.  We  deny  the  right  of  the  people,  either  of  the  Northern  or  Southern  States, 
to  decide  the  character  of  our  institutions,  Missouri  thought  she  had  settled  the 
question,  but  she  never  committed  a  greater  blunder." 

The  Herald  is  gloriously  right  in  spurning  the  idea  that  the  Federal  G-overnment 
can  fasten  slavery  upon  the  Territories,  though  doubtless  it  has  the  right  to  protect 
freedom,  both  there  and  in  the  States.  AU  governments,  State  or  National,  are 
bound  to  protect  personal  liberty. 

*  It  must  be  observed,  here,  that  the  theory  and  practice  of  the  pro-Slavery 
"  Democracy  "  involve  them  in  similar  and  even  worse  self-contradictions.  "With 
all  their  affirmations  of  "popular  sovereignty"  hi  the  Territories,  they  still  follow 
the  old  precedents  of  a  Federal  control  over  them.  They  appoint  the  Governors, 
Judges,  and  other  officers  of  Kansas,  instead  of  allowing  the  settlers  to  elect  them. 
Not  only  so ;  they  appoint  officers  most  obnoxious  to  the  settlers,  and  uphold  them 
in  the  most  outrageous  acts  of  tyranny.  Denying  the  Constitutional  power  of  the 
Federal  G-overnment  to  prohibit  Slavery  in  Kansas,  they  wield  that  power  to 
establish  it  And  when  the  settlers,  unable  longer  to  endure  it,  proceed  to  form 
and  adopt  a  Free  State  Constitution,  choose  State  officers,  elect  and  convene  a 
State  Legislature,  and  ask  admission  into  the  Union,  the  " Democratic"  clamorers 
for  "popular  sovereignty"  in  the  Territories,  denounce  it  as  treason,  though  their 
own  previous  course  in  the  case  of  other  Territories,,  had  abundantly  furnished  the 
precedent. 

Neither  party  have,  in  fact,  exhibited  any  thing  like  straightforward  consistency 
in  the  matter.  Neither  party  hesitates  either  to  use  or  to  repudiate  "  Squatter 
Sovereignty;"  to  invoke  or  to  deprecate  Federal  interference,  as  then-  own  tem- 
porary exigencies,  for  or  against  Slavery,  may  seem  to  require.  And  it  can  not  be 
said  that  the  past  history  of  the  country  supplies  any  uniform  rule  in  respect  to  it. 

As  neither  of  the  parties,  then,  has  any  consistent  and  authorized  theory  of  the 
relation  of  the  Federal  Government  to  the  Territories,  we  may  venture  to  propound 
our  own.  The  settle'rs  of  a  Territory,  being  citizens  of  the  United  States,  carry 
with  them  all  their  essential  rights,  as  such,  and  as  human  beings ;  just  as  the 
Plymouth  Colonists  brought  with  them  their  rights,  as  human  beings,  and  as  British 
subjects.  But  none  of  them  brought  any  right  to  hold  Slaves,  for  they  never  had 
any  such  right,  either  moral,  legal,  or  Constitutional.  They  have  the  right,  and 
are  under  obligation  to  establish  a  Government  for  the  equal  protection  of  the 
inalienable  rights  of  all ;  but  have  no  right,  either  moral  or  Constitutional,  to  estab- 


The  Position  of  the  Republican  Party.  31 

So  far  as  the  logic  of  their  arguments  and  of  their  position,  in 
these  particulars,  was  concerned,  it  all  went  against  the  results  they 
were  aiming  at.  It  confirmed  the  logic  and  vindicated  the  posi- 
tion of  their  opponents.  For  whatever  of  support  they  received 
at  the  ballot-box,  they  were  indebted,  not  to  their  position,  nor 
to  their  logic,  but  to  the  better  instincts  and  higher  conscience 
which  enabled  the  people  to  rise  above  all  processes  of  reason- 
ing, and  reach  their  own  independent  conclusions.  The  atrocities 
enacted  in  Kansas  were  sufficient  to  show,  independently  of  plat- 
forms, that  the  party  supporting  the  Administration  was  out- 
rageously wrong.  And  had  it  not  been  for  the  unhappy  confusion 
of  ideas  and  inconsistencies  of  position,  with  which  the  opposition 
was  justly  chargeable,  the  reaction  of  public  sentiment  would  have 
been  resistless  and  overwhelming,  instead  of  being  dubious  and 
uncertain.  These  statements  will  be  confirmed  by  the  facts  fol- 
lowing. 

THE  POSITION  OF  THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY. 

The  "Republican"  Convention  at  Pittsburgh,  Feb.  2 2  and  2 3,  was 
planned  and  notified  by  politicians  at  Washington  City,  who  deter- 
mined that  it  should  be  of  a  conservative  character.  And  it  was 
aiterwards  commended  to  support  by  affirming  that  the  "  con- 
servative" element  prevailed  against  the  more  radical  influences  in 
the  Convention.  It  was  presided  over  by  Mr.  F.  P.  Blair,  a  slave- 
holder, of  Maryland,  who  read  a  paper,  which  he  called  a  Southern 
platform,  and  which  was  "  received  with  unbounded  enthusiasm" 
by  the  Convention.  Its  leading  sentiments  will  appear,  from  the 
following  extracts : 

"There  is  a  great  body  of  thinking  men  in  the  Southern  States — many,  I  know 
in  Maryland,  a  considerable  number  of  my  neighbors  in  Montgomery  county — who 
deplore  the  repeal  of  the  compromises  relating  to  slavery,  which  all  hoped  had  termi- 
nated the  distractions  growing  out  of  this  disturbing  subject,  forever" 


lish  any  Government  subversive  of  any  man's  rights.  The  Federal  Government 
is  bound  to  protect  the  people  of  a  Territory  in  the  exercise  and  enjoyment  of 
these  just  and  Constitutional  rights ;  but  it  has  no  moral  or  Constitutional  right  to 
infringe  them.  It  is  bound  to  "guaranty"  to  the  people  a  "Republican  form  of 
Government" — which  excludes  Slavery.  This  covers,  consistently,  and  without 
self-contradiction,  the  whole  ground,  and  affords  a  firm  foothold  for  the  friends  of 
freedom,  without  disparaging  either  Federal  powers  or  Territorial  rights.  If  the 
clause  of  the  Constitution  that  says,  "  Congress  shall  have  power  to  dispose  of,  and 
make  all  needful  rules  and  regulations  respecting  the  Territory  or  other  property 
belonging  to  the  United  States,"  may  be  cited  as  conveying  civil  jurisdiction,  it 
certainly  contains  nothing  inconsistent  with  the  preceding  statement. 


32  The  Position  of  the  Republican  Party. 

After  denouncing  the  treachery  and  intrigues  by  means  of  which 
the  Nebraska  bill  was  introduced  and  passed,  the  "paper"  pro- 
ceeds : 

"  They"  (the  moderate  people  of  the  South)  "  were  not  aware  of  the  treachery 
of  these  (Northern)  representatives  to  their  constituents,  nor  did  they  anticipate  the 
excitement  which  had  ensued  from  the  wrong,  aggravated  by  the  betrayal  by 
which  it  was  attended,  nor  the  dangerous  consequences  likely  to  follow.  Multitudes 
of  honest  patriots  in  the  slaveholding  States,  who  love  the  Union,  would  willingly 
restore  the  Compromise,  the  work  of  the  great  men  of  their  own  region.  They 
were  sensible  of  the  fatal  effects  of  its  dissolution  upon  the  peace  and  prosperity  of 
the  Confederacy,  and  of  the  inevitable  destruction  of  the  security  in  which  they  hold 
the  slave  institution — of  the  frightful  scenes  of  civil  war  and  SLAVE  INSURRECTION 
which  might  arise  from  the  collisions  between  the  two  sections ;  on  the  one  side, 
wearing  the  aspect  of  a  war  of  conquest  for  the  extension  of  slavery ;  on  the  other, 
a  war  of  defense  to  preserve  the  rights  of  the  emigrants,  who  have  gone  from  their 
bosom." 

*  *  ••  *  *  * 

"  The  persons  who  have  sent  me  to  this  Convention  are  the  first,  of  the  slavehold- 
ing region,  who  have  come  forward  to  vindicate  the  cause  of  our  common  country 
against  this  sectional  influence.  They  are  'a  body  of  business  men  of  Baltimore, 
who  feel  that  their  city  especially,  and  the  State  of  Maryland,  have  a  great  stake 
depending  upon  the  preservation  of  the  Union  and  the  peace  of  the  country." 

*  ***** 

"The  repeal  of  the  repealing  clause  of  the  Nebraska-Kansas  Act  would  be  the 
finale  of  all  the  existing  commotions,  and  of  the  eager  ambition  that  originated 
them.  If*  this  single  line  is  inscribed  on  our  flag,  we  shall  conquer  under  it.  It 
will  be  the  Union  flag." 

****** 

"I  hold  that  every  issue  should  merge  in  that  of  repeal" 

The  plain  meaning  of  which  is,  that  the  Missouri  Compromise 
must  be  restored,  as  a  means  of  security  to  slavery. 

The  Address  of  the  Convention  itself  was  so  constructed  as  not 
to  conflict  with  the  preceding.  Among  its  concessions  and  dis- 
claimers were  the  following : 

"  The  slaveholding  interest  can  not  be  made  permanently  paramount,  in  the 
G-eneral  G-overnment,  without  involving  consequences  fatal  to  free  institutions. 
We  acknowledge  that  it  is  large  and  powerful,  that  in  the  States  where  it  exists 

IT   IS   ENTITLED,   UNDER    THE    CONSTITUTION,   LIKE  ALL    OTHER   LOCAL    INTERESTS, 

to  immunity  from  the  interferences  of  the  General  Government,  and  that  it  must  ne- 
cessarily exercise,  through  its  representatives,  a  considerable  share  of  political 
power." 

This  concession  accords  well  with  the  views  of  President  Pierce, 
as  they  had  been  previously  expressed  in  his  Annual  Message : 

"Hence  the  General  Government,  as  well  by  tho  enumerated  powers  granted 
to  it,  as  by  those  not  enumerated  and  therefore  refused  to  it,  was  forbidden  to 


The  Position  of  the  Republican  Party.  33 

touch  this  matter  (slavery)  in  the  sense  of  attack  or  offense,  it  was  placed  under 
the  general  safeguard  of  the  Union,  in  the  sense  of  defense  against  either  invasion 
or  domestic  violence,  like  all  other  local  interests  of  the  several  States." 

The  measures  of  the  Republican  party  were  stated  as  follows : 

"We  do  therefore  declare  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  as  objects  for  which 
we  unite  in  political  action : 

"•'  1.  We  demand,  and  shall  attempt  to  secure  the  repeal  of  all  laws  which  allow 
the  introduction  of  slavery  into  Territories  once  consecrated  to  freedom,  and  will  re- 
sist, by  every  Constitutional  means,  the  existence  of  Slavery  in  any  of  the  Territo- 
ries of  the  United  States.* 

"  '2.  We  will  support,  by  every  lawful  means,  our  brethren  in  Kansas,  in  their 
Constitutional  and  manly  resistance  to  the  usurped  authority  of  their  lawless  in- 
vaders, and  will  give  the  full  weight  of  our  political  power  in  favor  of  the  imme- 
diate admission  of  Kansas  into  the  Union,  as  a  free,  sovereign  State. 

"  '  3.  Believing  that  the  present  National  Administration  has  shown  itself  to  be 
weak  and  faithless,  and  that  its  continuance  in  power  is  identified  with  the  pro- 
gress of  the  slave  power  to  national  supremacy,  with  the  exclusion  of  freedom  from 
the  Territories,  and  with  increasing  civil  discord,  it  is  a  leading  purpose  in  our  or- 
ganization to  oppose  and  overthrow  it.'  " 

The  Convention  proceed  to  say  that  "  when  Franklin  Pierce,  on 
the  4th  of  March,  1853,  became  President  of  the  United  States,  no 
controversy  growing  out  of  slavery  was  agitating  the  country." 
But  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  had  reopened  the  con- 
troversy. In  speaking  of  the  question  concerning  the  institutions 
of  Kansas,  the  Address  says,  distinctly : 

"  The  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty  in  the  people  of  the  Territories,  has  no 
warrant  or  support  in  the  Constitution." — "  So  long  as  they  remain  Territories, 
they  are  the  possession,  and  under  the  exclusive  dominion  of  the  United  States, 
and  it  is  for  the  General  Government  to  make  such  laws  for  them,  as  their  welfare, 
and  that  of  the  nation  may  require." 

The  Address  closes  with  the  following  : 

"  Disclaiming- anif  intentions  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists, 
or  to  invalidate  those  portions  of  the  Constitution  by  which  it  is  removed  from  national 
control,  let  us  prevent  the  increase  of  its  political  power,  preserve  the  General 
Government  from  its  ascendency,  bring  back  its  administration  to  the  principles 
and  practice  of  its  wise  and  illustrious  founders,  and  thus  vindicate  the  Constitu- 
tion and  the  Union,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  pos- 
terity." 

By  the  Pittsburg  Convention  a  Committee  was  appointed  to 
call  a  Nominating  Convention,  on  the  preceding  Platform.  In 
the  discharge  of  their  duty,  this  Committee  issued  an  Address, 

What  those  "  Constitutional  means"  are,  the  Convention  does  not  define! 


34  The  Position  of  the  Republican  Party. 

setting  forth  the  objects  of  the  Kominating  Convention,  which 
were  thus  stated : 

"Why  may  not  all  those  classes  who  are  hostile  to  the  introduction  of  slavery 
into  free  territory,  unite  at  this  crisis  of  impending  danger,  to  vote  for  a  common 
ticket,  which  will  be  nominated  to  assert  the  grand  principle  of  repressing  the  ex- 
tension of  slaveholding  monopoly,  and  vindicate  the  rights  of  the  people  in  all  sec- 
tions of  the  Union,  who  labor  with  their  own  hands  ?  A  ticket  which  will  agitate 
NOT  with  a  view  to  detract  from  the  rights  of  the  States  to  dispose  of  the  subject 
within  their  limits,  according  to  their  sovereign  will :  yet  its  influence  to  destroy 
the  freedom  of  WHITE  laborers  is  a  fit  subject  of  investigation,  (1  ?)  with  a  view 
to  repress  the  aggressive  power  in  every  Constitutional  way." 

Again,  speaking  of  their  Democratic  opponents,  the  Committee 
say: 

"  In  their  arrogance  they  stigmatize  as  '  Black  Republicans'  those  who  would 
make  a  constellation  of  free  bright  republics,  constituted  of  the  "WHITE  race 
ALONE,  untarnished  by  a  slave  of  any  color." 

The  Nominating  Convention  met  at  Philadelphia,  the  17th  of 
June.  It  did  nothing  contradictory  to  the  doings  of  the  Conven- 
tion that  preceded  it,  or  of  the  call  under  which  it  had  assembled. 
Its  disclaimers  of  Federal  authority  over  slavery  in  the  States, 
though  less  offensively  stated,  were,  in  reality,  retained.  This 
was  done  by  adverting  to  the  "  self-evident  truths"  of  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence,  and  then  adding  that  "the  primary  object 
and  ulterior  design,  of  our  Federal  Government  were  to  secure 
these  rights  to  all  persons  under  their  exclusive  jurisdiction," 
meaning  in  the  Territories,  and  plainly  suggesting  that  the  Gor- 
ernment  was  not  to  apply  the  same  principle  within  the  States ! 
This  was  done,  still  further,  by  quoting  the  Constitutional  provi- 
sion that  "  no  person  shall  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property, 
without  due  process  of  law" — and  then  saying,  "  It  becomes  our 
duty  to  maintain  this  provision  of  the  Constitution  against  all  at- 
tempts to  violate  it  in  the  Territories  of  the  United  States !" — thus 
plainly  teaching  that  its  violation  in  the  States  was  to  be  passed 
over  with  impunity.  So  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
made  by  the  "Representatives  of  the  United  States,"  and  the 
"  Constitution  of  the  United  States" — so  far  as  the  principles  and 
the  safeguards  of  liberty  are  concerned — are  not  at  all  for  the 
States,  who  declared  and  ordained  them,  but  for  "  the  Territories" 
only! 

In  the  selection  of  their  Presidential  Candidate,  the  Republican 
Convention  at  Philadelphia  placed  itself  precisely  on  the  same 
platform  with  the  Pittsburg  Convention.  It  nominated  COL.  FRB- 


The  Position  of  the  Republican  Party.  35 

MONT,  in  response  to  a  letter  from  him,  which  was  read  in  the 
Convention,  and  which  was  received  with  acclamation.  In  this 
letter  he  said : 

11  While  lam  inflexible  in  the  belief  that  it  [slavery]  ought  not  to  be  interfered  with 
where  it  exists,  under  the  shield  of  State  sovereignty,  I  am  as  inflexibly  opposed  to 
its  extension  beyond  its  present  limits." 

Of  the  manner  in  which  the  Opposition  party  in  Congress  has 
discharged  its  responsibilities,  some  statements  have  already  been 
made.  Of  the  general  tone  of  Republican  speeches  and  editorials, 
in  the  country  at  large,  we  can  not  and  need  not  speak  at  much 
length.  While  much  important  information  has  been  diffused  by 
them,  and  many  noble  and  just  sentiments  advanced,  we  fear  that, 
on  the  whole,  the  standard  has  not  been  raised  higher  than  in  the 
two  National  Conventions.  In  some  instances,  toward  the  close 
of  the  campaign,  it  has  sunk  lower.  The  determination  to  secure 
freedom  for  Kansas  has  been  more  faintly  expressed.  Instead  of 
demanding,  as  at  first,  that  "Kansas  should  be  immediately  ad- 
mitted^ as  a  State  of  the  Union,  with  her  present  Free  Constitu- 
tion^ (for  this  was  the  language  of  the  Philadelphia  Convention,) 
there  has  seemed  a  tendency  to  recede  to  the  position  that  Kansas, 
as  well  as  other  new  States,  is  to  be  admitted  either  with  or  with- 
out slavery,  as  the  people  therein  residing  shall  determine,  pro- 
vided only  that  there  be  no  external  interference  or  violence, 
either  from  the  people  of  neighboring  States  or  from  the  Govern- 
ment— thus  falling  back  upon  the  "  Squatter  Sovereignty"  theory, 
but  without  the  only  true  corrective,  namely,  a  denial  of  the  right 
of  any  State  or  Territory  to  establish  slavery. 

As  specimens  of  this  retreating  tendency,  it  is  suflicient  to  re- 
cord an  extract  (from  the  New- York  Tribune)  of  a  speech  of  Mr. 
Speaker  BANKS,  in  "Wall  street,  New-York,  September  25th. 
After  disclaiming,  for  his  party,  any  desire  to  interfere  with 
Slavery  in  the  States,  Mr.  Banks  proceeded  to  say : 

"  The  question  is  not  that  we  shall  legislate  against  the  South  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  Slavery.  It  is  not  that  we  shall  legislate  upon  the  question  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  bill.  "We  don't  raise  the  question  whether,  in  the  future  extension  of  our 
Territory,  Slavery  shall  be  prohibited  or  no.  We  abandon  all  these  questions,  and 
we  stand  upon  this  distinct  simple  proposition,  that  that  which  gave  peace  to  the 
country  in  1820,  and  that  which  secured  the  peace  of  the  country  in  1850,  ought 
to  be  made  good  by  the  G-overnment  of  the  United  States  with  the  consent  of  the 
American  people.  That  is  all  we  ask — no  more,  no  less,  no  better  and  no  worse 
—that  the  spirit  of  the  Acts  of  1820  and  1850  shall  be  made  good  by  the  Ameri- 
can people  of  the  South,  let  me  say,  as  well  as  the  North,  in  the  place  of  the  con- 
flagration, murder,  and  civil  war  that  now  prevail  in  Kansas.  To  do  this,  no 


36  The  Position  of  the  Republican  Party. 

legislation  is  required,  and  it  is  not  necessary  that  the  halls  of  Congress  should  be 
again  opened  to  agitation.  "We  desire  the  election  of  a  President  of  the  United 
States  with  simple  views  and  determined  will,  who  will  exert  the  influence  of  the 
Government  in  that  portion  of  the  Territory  of  the  United  States,  and  allow  the 
people  of  this  country*  to  settle  the  question  of  Slavery  for  themselves  there. 
[Applause.]  "We  ask  no  man  more  than  this,  and  when  we  have  succeeded  in  the 
Presidential  election  before  us,  as  in  the  grace  of  God  we  shall  and  will  succeed, 
[great  applausef]  and  the  fact  is  prociaimed  that  Fremont  is  elected,  Kansas  will 
be  again  restored  to  freedom  without  legislative  act,  or  the  interference  of  the 
hand  of  Government  in  any  way.  [Applause.]  So  much,  gentlemen,  for  the  re- 
medy in  regard  to  Kansas,  that  we  propose.  It  is  a  simple,  feasible,  and  states- 
man-like proposition.  Effect  the  settlement  of  this  question,  and  you  remove  a 
question  of  agitation,  and  give  again  the  peace  which  it  enjoyed  in  1852.  I  should 
do  wrong  to  our  cause,  the  cause  of  the  Northern  States,  if  I  failed  to  say  that 
there  are  other  influences  we  desire  to  exert  by  the  elevation  to  the  Presidency 
of  the  man  of  our  choice.  We  ask  that  the  dead  weight  of  human  wrong  shall  be 
lifted  up  from  the  continent  again,  that  it  may  rise  as  it  was  rising  before  these 
acts  of  wrong  were  done.  [Applause.]  "We  ask  of  you,  fellow-citizens  of  New- 
York,  four  years  of  quiet  and  peace,  so  that  we  may  again  proceed  to  the  develop- 
ment of  tho  material  interests  of  that  portion  of  the  continent  which  we  occupy." 

This  is  an  explicit  abandonment  of  "  non-extension."  The  peo- 
ple of  Kansas  are  to  "  settle  the  question  of  Slavery  for  them- 
selves." "Peace"  and  safety  are  to  be  regained,  by  going 
back  to  the  Compromise-measures  of  1850,  and  reposing  upon 
them.  The  downward  tendency  and  retreating  course  of  political 
"  non-extension  "  (resorted  to  either  as  a  substitute  or  as  a  prepa- 
ration for  abolition)  are  here  clearly  seen. 

Nor  have  these  vacillating  and  retreating  tendencies  of  the 
Republican  party  been  unobserved  or  unimproved  by  their  Demo- 
cratic opponents.  Their  editors  and  public  speakers  have  greedily 
seized  upon  such  manifestations  and  have  held  them  up  in  triumph, 
as  confirmations  of  the  soundness  of  the  Democratic  platform,  and 
as  presages  of  a  "  Democratic  "  triumph,  and  of  a  "  Republican  " 
overthrow.  An  instance  we  may  mention,  in  the  speech  of  Hon. 
Rufus  Choate,  at  Lowell,  Mass.,  in  the  course  of  which  he  re- 
viewed the  speech  of  Mr.  Banks,  already  quoted,  and  showed  that 
it  was  a  concession  of  one  of  the  principal  points  in  debate  be- 
tween the  two  parties.  The  defeat  of  the  Republican  party  may 
be  sufficiently  accounted  for,  by  the  concessions  made  in  that 
singje  speech  of  Mr.  Banks,  approved  and  lauded  as  it  was  by  Re- 
publican editors.  V-*« 

*  The  New- York  Herald's  report  has  it :  "  so  as  to  allow  its  people  to  settle  the 
question  for  themselves,  there."  This  was  evidently  the  meaning. 


Previous  Experiments.  37 


PREVIOUS  EXPERIMENTS. 

II  farther  illustrations  were  needed  of  the  downward  tendency 
of  efforts  for  mere  non-extension,  the  entire  history  of  such  efforts, 
in  times  past,  is  full  of  important  instruction. 

The  advocates  of  mere  "  non-extension  "  are  never  tired  of  for- 
tifying their  position,  by  pointing  to  the  policy  of  our  fathers. 
They  glory  in  seeking  to  bring  back  the  country  to  the  principles 
and  measures  of  Washington  and  Jefferson.  They  follow  the 
example  (they  tell  us)  of  those  who  established  the  Ordinance  of 
1787,  for  the  North-Western  Territory,  and  for  the  important 
States  that  have  been  formed  out  of  it.  And  here  closes  the  story 
of  the  benefits  of  that  policy.  They  forget  to  tell  us  that  even  the 
North- Western  States,  and  all  the  other  nominally  Free  States, 
are  at  this  moment,  insecure,  and  that  they  have  all  along  been 
hunting-ground  for  Slaves,  to  the  utter  insecurity  of  personal 
liberty.  They  forget  how  those  same  illustrious  "  non-extension  " 
statesmen,  gave  us  the  first  Fugitive  Slave  bill,  the  admission  of 
two  new  Slave  States,  the  unconstitutional  establishment  of  Slavery 
in  the  Federal  District,  and  the  purchase  of  Slaveholding  Louisiana, 
thus  inaugurating  the  policy  that  is  still  continued,  and  that  has 
brought  us,  step  by  step,  into  our  present  condition.  "  Non-ex- 
tensionists" — professedly  such — have  done  all  this  for  us.  At- 
tempted "non-extension"  (as  a  substitute  for  Abolition)  has 
brought  upon  the  nation  what  it  now  suffers. 

"  Non-extension,"  after  a  feeble  resistance  to  the  admission  of 
slaveholding  Missouri,  yielded  the  point,  by  a  disgraceful  and 
wicked  Compromise,  as  oolish  as  it  was  wicked,  by  which  the 
Slave-power  secured  all  it  wanted  then,  with  the  vantage-ground 
which,  afterwards,  enabled  it  to  seize  the  relinquished  Territory. 

The  steady  and  consistent  fidelity  of  "non-extensionists "  to 
"  non-extension,"  is  a  phenomenon  seldom  if  ever  witnessed.  The 
signature  of  Washington  was  appended  to  the  reaffirmed  North- 
Western  restriction,  in  1789,  and  to  the  admission  of  slaveholding 
Kentucky  three  years  afterwards.  The  same  Jefferson  who  so 
solicitously  excluded  Slavery  from  the  North-Western  Territory, 
in  1787,  became  clamorous  for  the  unrestricted  admission  of  Mis- 
souri, in  1819-20. 

For  eight  years,  the  annexation  of  Texas  was  resisted,  but  was 
consented  to,  afterwards,  thus  demonstrating  that  Slavery  per- 
mitted to  live — is,  eventually,  Slavery  permitted  to  make  progress. 


38  Previous  Experiments. 

All  it  asks  is  a  place  for  its  root,  in  the  soil.  Its  own  nature  and 
the  nature  of  things,  stand  pledged  to  its  consequent  growth. 
And  those  who  aim  merely  at  non-extension,  while  they  consent 
to  existing  Slavery,  for  want  of  self-consistency  become  unstable 
and  gradually  relax  their  efforts. 

Still  later  experiments  have  produced  similar  results,  and  con- 
firm the  same  lesson.  We  copy  from  an  editorial  of  the  New- 
York  Daily  Tribune  of  October  29th,  1856: 

"When,  in  1846,  President  Polk  sent  a  message  to  Congress,  asking  that  money 
be  placed  at  his  disposal  to  facilitate  the  negotiation  of  a  peace  with  Mexico,  every 
body  understood  this  proposition  as  looking  to  a  purchase  of  Mexican  Territory, 
and  a  strong  solicitude  was  spontaneously  expressed  that  the  Territory  so  acquired 
should  not  be  cursed  with  Human  Slavery.  A  consultation  among  the  Democratic 
members  from  the  Free  States  was  has  Lily  had,  in  consequence  of  which  Mr.  David 
Wilmot,  of  Pennsylvania,  proposed  to  amend  the  first  section  of  the  bill  as  reported, 
by  adding : 

"'Provided,  That,  as  an  express  and  fundamental  condition  to  the  acquisition 
of  any  Territory  from  the  Republic  of  Mexico  by  the  United  States,  by  virtue  of 
any  treaty  which  may  be  negotiated  between  them,  and  to  the  use  by  the  Execu- 
tive of  the  moneys  herein  appropriated,  neither  Slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude 
shall  ever  exist  in  any  part  of  said  Territory,  except  for  crime,  whereof  the  party 
shall  first  be  duly  convicted.' 

"This  Democratic  proposition  appeared  so  reasonable  and  just  that  every  Whig 
from  the  Free  States  voted  for  it,  and  every  Democrat  also  but  three.  The  repre- 
sentative of  the  Berka  District,  Pennsylvania,  was  among  its  firmest  supporters. 
The  South  solidly  opposed  it;  but  it  was  carried  by  the  strong  vote  of  83  to  64. 
The  bill  thus  amended  passed  the  House,  but  failed  for  want  of  time  in  the  Senate, 
and  Gten.  Cass  went  home  complaining  that  John  Davis  of  Massachusetts,  by  talk- 
ing against  time,  had  prevented,  the  adoption  of  this  salutary  Proviso,  for  which  he 
said  he  was  anxious  to  vote. 

"  The  next  year,  (1847)  most  of  the  Legislatures  of  the  Free  States  passed  resolves 
approving  of  the  principle  affirmed.  Here  is  a  fair  sample  hi  the  resolves  of  the 
Legislature  of  New-Hampshire — then  strongly  Democratic : 

""  'Resolved,  ty  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  in  General  Court  convened, 
That  we  regard  the  institution  of  Slavery  as  a  moral,  social,  and  political  evil,  and, 
as  such,  we  deeply  regret  its  existence,  and  are  willing  to  concur  in  all  reasonable 
and  constitutional  measures  that  may  tend  to  its  removal. 

"  '  Resolved,  That  in  alV  Territory  which  may  hereafter  be  added  or  acquired  by 
the  United  States,  where  Slavery  does  not  exist  at  the  tune  of  such  addition  or 
acquirement,  neither  Slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  except  for  the  punish- 
ment of  crime,  whereof  the  party  has  been  duly  convicted,  ought  ever  to  exist,  but 
the  same  should  ever  remain  free ;  and  we  are  opposed  to  the  extension  of  Slavery 
over  any  such  Territory ;  and  that  we  also  approve  of  the  vote  of  our  Senators  and 
Representatives  in  Congress  in  favor  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso. 

"  '  Resolved,  That  our  Senators  in  Congress  be  instructed,  and  our  Representa- 
tives be  requested,  by  all  expedient  and  constitutional  means  and  measures,  to 
sustain  the  principles  herein  above  set  forth. 

"'  MOSES  NORRIS,  JR., 

'"Speaker  of  the  House  o  Representatives. 
"  '  HARRY  HIBBARD,  President  of  the  Senate. 
"  '  JARED  W.  WILLIAMS,  Governor.' 


Previous  ^Experiments.  39 

"In  each  of  the  two  following  years,  successive  New-Hampshire  Legislatures, 
still  strongly  Democratic,  passed  simila  rresolves,  as  did  those  of  all  the  other  De- 
mocratic Free  States,  Iowa  only  excepted. 

"  In  1847,  (Oct.  6th,)  a  Whig  State  Convention  was  held  at  Syracuse,  in  our  State, 
whereof  James  Brooks,  editor  of  the  New- York  Express,  was  a  member ;  and  to 
him  was  confided  the  duty  of  drafting  the  address  to  the  people  of  our  State.  In 
that  address  Mr.  Brooks,  with  the  hearty  assent  of  the  entire  Convention,  speaks 
of  Slavery  Extension  as  follows : 

"  '  We  protest,  in  the  name  of  the  Rights  of  Man  and  of  Liberty,  against  the 
further  extension  of  Slavery  in  North- America.  The  curse  which  our  mother 
country  inflicted  upon  us,  in  spite  of  our  fathers'  remonstrances,  we  demand  shall 
never  blight  the  virgin  soil  of  the  North-Pacific.  »  We  feel  that  it  would  be  a  hor- 
rible mockery  for  the  columns  of  Anglo-Saxon  immigration  to  be  approaching  and 
looking  down  upon  the  dark,  benighted  region  of  Asiatic  despotism,  with  Africans 
enslaved  under  the  banners  that  lead  their  march,  "  as  westward  the  Star  of  Empire 
takes  its  way."  We  have  no  desire  to  infringe  upon  any  one  of  the  Compromises 
of  the  Constitution.  The  Constitution  as  it  is,  and  the  country  as  it  is,  are  good 
eneugh  for  us.  We  Whigs  of  the  North  are  conservatives  of  the  Constitution,  in 
its  essence  and  in  its  every  word  and  letter.  The  fell  and  mischievous  results  of 
Abolitionism  are  nowhere  better  understood  or  more  contemned  than  in  New- York. 
But  we  will  not  pour  out  the  blood  of  our  countrymen,  if  we  can  help  it,  to  turn  a 
Free  into  a  Slave  soil.  We  will  not  spend  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  millions  of  dol- 
lars per  year,  to  make  a  slave-market  for  any  portion  of  our  countrymen.  We 
will  never,  for  such  a  purpose,  consent  to  run  up  an  untold  National  Debt,  and 
saddle  our  posterity  with  fund-mongers,  tax-brokers,  tax-gatherers,  laying  an  ex- 
cise or  an  impost  on  every  thing  they  taste,  touch,  or  live  by.  The  Union  as  it  is, 
the  whole  Union,  and  nothing  but  the  Union,  we  will  stand  by  to  the  last ;  but  No 
More  Territory  is  our  watchword — unless  it  be  free.'' 

"Now,  this  same  James  Brooks  is  one  of  the  noisiest  advocates  of  acquiescence 
in  Slavery  Extension,  and  nightly  sits  up  with  the  Union  for  fear  that  the  '  Black 
Republicans '  will  destroy  it  by  keeping  Slavery  out  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska ! 
****** 

"  Josiah  Randall,  of  Philadelphia,  is  another  ex- Whig  who  is  now  busily  de- 
nouncing the  Republican  party  as  sectional  and  dangerous  to  the  Union,  and 
therefore  (he  says)  he  supports  Buchanan.  Yet  nearly  forty  years  ago  (in  1819) 
this  same  Mr.  Randall,  then  a  member  of  the  Pennsylvania  House,  himself  called 
the  Yeas  and  Nays  upon  and  voted  for  a  preamble  which  forcibly  denounced  the 
contemplated  admission  of  Missouri  as  a  Slave  State,  stigmatizing  it  as  a  measure 
'which  has  a  palpable  tendency  to  impair  the  political  relations  of  the  several 
States;  which  is  calculated  to  mar  the  social  happiness  of  the  present  and  future 
generations ;  which,  if  adopted,  would  impede  the  march  of  humanity  and  freedom 
through  the  world ;  and  would  transfer  from  a  misguided  ancestry  an  odious  stain, 
and  fix  it  indelibly  upon  the  present  race — a  measure,  in  brief,  which  proposes  to 
spread  the  crimes  and  cruelties  of  Slavery  from  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  to  the 
shores  of  the  Pacific.' 

"  Mr.  Randall  and  his  associates  proceed  to  say,  that  '  it  can  not  be  pretended 
that  the  rights  of  any  of  the  States  are  at  all  to  be  affected  by  refusing  to  extend 
the  mischiefs  of  human  bondage  over  the  boundless  regions  of  the  West ' — and 
conclude  by  adopting,  as  the  unanimous  sentiment  of  Pennsylvania,  the  following: 

" '  Resolved,  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
Pennsylvania,  That  the  Senators  of  this  State,  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States, 
be  and  they  are  hereby  instructed,  and  that  the  Representatives  of  this  State,  in 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  be,  and  they  are  hereby  requested,  to  vote 


40  Previous  Experiments. 

against  the  admission  of  any  Territory  as  a  State  into  the  Union,  unless  said  Terri- 
tory shall  stipulate  and  agree  that  'the  further  introduction  of  Slavery  or  involun- 
tary servitude,  except  for  the  punishment  of  crimes,  whereof  the  party  shall  have 
been  duly  convicted,  shall  be  prohibited ;  and  that  all  children  born  within  the  said 
Territory,  after  its  admission  into  the  Union  as  a  State,  shall  be  free,  but  may  be 
held  to  service  until  the  age  of  twenty-five  years.' ' 

"  Daniel  S.  Dickinson,  on  one  occasion  when  the  "Wilmot  Proviso  was  before 
the  Senate,  protested  against  its  interpolation  into  a  Supply  bill  in  tune  of  war, 
saying  he  was  in  favor  of  the  principle,  but  not  of  its  assertion  in  that  connection. 
(We  can  not  at  this  moment  put  our  finger  on  his  speech  to  this  effect,  but  our 
recollection  of  it  is  very  decided.) 

"Greene  C.  Bronson,  in  1848,  .wrote  a  letter  to  a  meeting  of  Barnburners,  avow- 
ing himself  opposed  to  the  Extension  of  Slavery. 

« — In  short,  before  the  Slave  Power  began  to  bluster  and  threaten,  the  con- 
currence of  sentiment  in  the  Free  States  in  favor  of  excluding  Slavery  from  all 
Territories  not  already  cursed  by  it,  was  all  but  universal." 

****** 

Thus  far  we  have  quoted  from  the  Tribune.  Its  principal  Editor 
and  Proprietor,  HORACE  GREELEY,  has  collected  and  published  a 
documentary  "  HISTORY  OF  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  SLAVERY  EXTEN- 
SION OR  RESTRICTION  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES,  from  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  to  the  present  day,"  etc. — a  very  valuable 
and  timely  work.  It  exhibits  (as  it  was  doubtless  intended  to  do) 
the  vast  amount  of  labor  that,  has  been  expended  by  large  num- 
bers of  the  most  able  and  popular  statesmen  of  the  country,  of  dif- 
ferent parties,  to  prevent  the  extension  of  slavery.  Their  example, 
and  the  influence  of  their  honored  names,  are  brought  forward  to 
sanction  and  encourage  similar  efforts  now.  But  the  work  also 
exhibits  (whatever  was  intended  by  itj  the  almost  entire  failure  of 
those  efforts,  especially  of  those  of  a  recent  date.  Missouri,  in 
despite  of  the  opposition,  was  admitted,  and  the  territory  then 
exempted  by  a  compromise,  has  lately  been  seized  upon.  Texas 
has  been  admitted,  and  the  Wilmot  proviso  defeated.  California, 
Oregon,  and  the  States  formed  out  of  the  North-Western  Terri- 
tory, nominally,  have  thus  far  escaped  slavery,  but  this  is  counter- 
balanced by  the  admission  of  slaveholding  Louisiana,  Florida, 
Texas,  and  (prospectively)  New-Mexico — to  say  nothing  of  Cuba 
and  Central  America.  Our  present  condition  and  prospects,  as 
Mr.  Greeley  understands  them,  are  thus  set  forth,  at  the  close  of 
the  article  already  quoted  from,  in  the  Tribune  of  Oct.  29. 

"The  Republican  party,  and  that  alone,  stands  clearly  on  the  ground  first  marked 
out  by  Thomas  Jefferson  in  1784,  and  unanimously  affirmed  by  the  last  Continental 
Congress  in  '87  and  the  first  Federal  Congress  in  '89 — the  ground  maintained  by 
the  Free  States  in  1818-20,  and  again  in  1846-48.  If  we  are  beaten  in  this  Elec- 
tion, the  North  is  completely  backed  down  from  all  the  distinctive  ground  she  has 
hitherto  taken,  and  slavery  is  established  as  the  natural  condition  of  the  Territories, 


Lessons  of  Experience.  41 

while  freedom  is  made  the  local  and  casual  exception.  If  we  are  beaten  now,  it  is 
settled  that  the  Slave  Power  has  but  to  demand  and  threaten,  to  secure  whatever 
further  concession  it  may  see  fit  to  require.  The  right  of  the  slaveholder  to  bring 
his  human  chattels  into  free  States,  and  the  reopening  of  the  African  Slave  Trade, 
are  all  that  remain  to  be  exacted,  to  render  the  enthronement  of  slavery  complete. 
And  these  can  both  be  carried  with  a  lighter  shock  to  the  sensibilities  of  the  North 
than  was  given  in  the  repudiation  of  the  Missouri  Compact." 

\  LESSONS  OP  EXPEEIENCE. 

This,  then,  is  the  condition  into  which  we  are  brought  by  an 
EIGHTY  YEARS'  EXPERIMENT  OF  THE  "NON-EXTENSION"  POLICY, 
connected  (except  at  an  early  date,  the  only  period  of  its  efficacy) 
with  disclaimers  of  abolition.  As  soon  as  abolition  came  to  be  dis- 
claimed or  postponed,  "  non-extension"  gave  way  to  "  extension," 
and  thus  "  the  great  struggle"  becomes  less  and  less  hopeful.  If 
any  thing  is  to  be  learned  by  this  Eighty  Years'  "  Struggle" — con- 
firming the  deductions  of  reason — it  is  this,  that  "  NON-EXTENSION" 
without  ABOLITION  is,  in  the  long  run,  and  on  the  whole,  a  failure. 
Incidental  exceptions  confirm  the  general  rule.  The  closing  pic- 
ture of  the  Tribune  attests  this.  And  the  temporary  or  seeming 
rescue  of  Kansas,  should  it  occur,  either  with  or  without  a  "  Re- 
publican" triumph,  would  add  but  a  flickering  light  to  that  dark 
picture. 

"  The  Republican  party,"  says  the  Tribune,  "  stands  clearly  on 
the  ground  first  marked. out  by  Thomas  Jefferson,  in  1784."  Then 
"  the  Republican  party  stands  clearly"  on  the  ground  of  "  empti- 
ness," marked  out  by  "  the  plummet  of  confusion" — where  "  Kon- 
extension"  has  stood  for  the  last  eighty  years !  Instead  of  having 
made  progress,  it  has  gone  backward.  Its  contrast  of  position  is 
marked  by  placing  its  1856  by  the  side  of  its  1784.  See  what  it 
is  now,  as  compared  with  what  it  was  then.  From  this,  the  mea- 
sure of  its  past,  may  be  computed  its  future.  What  the  Tribune 
apprehends  from  a  Republican  defeat,  may  be  expected  either  with 
a  Republican  defeat  or  a  Republican  triumph,  unless  Republican- 
ism can  learn  that  "Non-'Extension"  is  to  be  reached  in  no  way 
but  by  Extinction.  High  time  is  it,  after  an  eighty  years'  disas- 
trous experiment,  to  explode  the  transparent  fallacy  of  either 
facilitating  extinction,  or  of  compensating  for  the  absence  of  it,  by 
a  previous  "Non-extension."  What  Washington,  Franklin,  and 
Jefferson,  in  the  plenitude  of  their  popularity  and  power,  and  in 
the  feeble  infancy  of  slavery,  could  not  or  dared  not  do ;  what 
John  Quincy  Adams  and  Van  Buren  could  not  do ;  what  Webster, 
Clay,  and  FiUmore  could  not  or  did  not  do  (for  all  these  are 


42  Lessons  of  Experience. 

claimed  as  having  been  ISTon-Extensionists) — what  Chase,  Hale, 
Seward,  Sumner,  and  Giddings  have  not  been  able  to  do,  is  not 
very  likely  to  be  done  by  their  successors,  the  leaders  of  the  pre- 
sent Republican  party,  who  have  not  attempted  more,  nor  stood 
more  firmly,  nor  brought  more  comprehensiveness  of  vision  or 
mental  power  to  the  work.  It  is  no  disparagement  either  to  the 
earlier  or  the  later  generations  of  "  Non-extensionists"  to  say,  that 
they  could  not  and  can  not  do  what,  in  the  nature,  of  things,  can 
not  be  done.  We  would  not  deny  that  local  and  temporary  ad- 
vantages may,  at  tunes,  be  gained  by  restriction ;  and  we  would 
earnestly  insist  that  every  effort  for  the  extension  of  slavery,  in 
whatever  direction,  should  be  firmly  resisted  by  the  friends  of 
freedom,  by  every  consistent  and  lawful  measure.  But  among 
such  measures  we  could  not  include  the  support  of  parties  and  can- 
didates opposed  to  the  abolition  of  existing  slavery,  which  would 
be  doing  evil  that  good  may  come.  We  would  not  rely  on  the 
best  measures  of  restriction,  to  work  out  the  future  extinction  of 
slavery,  or  even  to  afford  permanent  security  to  any  portion  of  the 
country,  while  any  other  portion  of  it  is  relinquished  to  slavery. 

We  do  not  say  that  the  Republican  party,  had  it  been  tri- 
umphant in  this  election,  might  not  successfully  roll  back  the  tide 
of  pro-slavery  aggression.  We  think  it  could  and  would,  if  it  could 
but  be  persuaded  to  accurately  count  the  cost,  and  magnanimously 
consent  to  pay  the  price,  namely,  a  radical  and  resolute  change  of 
its  policy.  But  we  have  no  faith  in  its  ability  to  do  it  in  any  other 
way.  We  do  not  believe  in  its  power  to  disarrange  the  order  of 
nature,  to  repeal  the  laws  of  moral  and  political  cause  and  effect, 
or  to  reverse  all  the  lessons  of  past  history.  We  do  not  believe  it 
could  prevent  the  future  extension  of  slavery,  under  the  Federal  pro- 
tection, into  all  the  Territories  and  all  the  States,  if  it  continued  to 
concede  to  the  slaveholders  of  any  one  of  the  States  the  right  of 
Federal  protection  for  their  slaveholding.  We  do  not  believe  that 
the  people  of  the  Nation,  or  even  of  the  ISTon-slaveholding  States, 
can  be  made  to  settle  down  into  a  resolute  and  effectual  denial  of 
the  Constitutional  right  of  elaveholding  in  one  part  of  the  country, 
while  they  concede  that  same  right  to  the  slaveholders  in  another 
part  of  the  country.  When  forced,  as  they  soon  must  be,  to  act 
upon  the  slaveholder's  claim  to  property  in  man,  not  as  resting  upon 
any  local  or  State  enactment,  but  upon  "  natural  right,"  they  will 
be  compelled  either  to  deny  the  claim  to  all  the  citizens  of  all  the 
States  and  Territories,  or  else  concede  it  to  all  of  them.  The 
statesman  or  the  party  that  asks  their  vote  against  the  extension 
of  slavery,  must  give  them  an  opportunity  to  vote  against  the  ew 


Lessons  of  Experience.  43 

istence  of  slavery.  They  will  see  in  the  latter  the  only  adequate 
and  sure  means  of  the  former. 

Or  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  people  finally  conclude  to  continue 
their  indorsement  of  the  Constitutional  right  of  slaveholding  in  the 
slave  States,  yielding  to  the  claim  of  the  slaveholders  as  a  natural 
right,  they  will,  of  necessity,  be  driven  to  concede  the  same  Con- 
stitutional right  of  the  slaveholder  to  carry  his  slaves  into  all  the 
Territories  and  all  the  States,  in  accordance  with  the  present  de- 
mands of  the  Oligarchy,  and  with  the  policy  of  President  Pierce.* 

The  same  result  will  also  be  witnessed  in  Congress  and  in  the 
Cabinet.  The  Constitutional  right  of  the  slaveholders  to  the  pro- 
tection of  their  slave  property  in  all  the  States  and  Territories, 
will  have  to  be  ACKNOWLEDGED,  or,  else  it  will  have  to  be  DENIED 
in  respect  to  all  of  them.  The  changed  position  of  the  slavery 
party,  in  respect  to  the  ground  of  their  claim  on  slave  property, 
has  forced  this  alternative  upon  the  Government  and  upon  the 
country.  Is  the  Republican  party,  prepared,  or  in  process  of  pre- 
paring itself,  to  grapple  with  this  question,  and  to  decide  it  in  favor 


*  In  all  the  debates  in  Congress,  on  the  Nebraska  bill  and  on  the  affairs  of  Kan- 
sas, we  have  found  no  Free  Soiler  or  Republican  who  has  based  an  argument  against 
the  admission  of  slaves  into  Kansas,  on  the  ground  of  the  illegality  of  Slavery,  in 
tfie  Slave  States,  or,  that  human  beings  are  not  property.  We  may  extend  the  same 
remark  to  all  the  Republican  Conventions,  public  speeches,  and  newspaper  discus- 
sions, during  the  Presidential  canvass.  They  have  uniformly  taken  the  ground  that 
Slavery  can  not  lawfully  go  into  the  Territories,  because,  in  the  Territories,  there  is 
no  local  positive  law,  creating  the  relation.  Mr.  Fessenden,  of  Maine,  in  a  speech 
in  the  Senate,  during  the  present  session,  places  the  argument  expressly  on  that 
ground.  "We  deny,"  says  he,  "that  there  ia  any  Constitutional  right,  on  the  part 
of  any  Southern  man,  to  go  into  a  free  Territory,  and  carry  his  slaves  with  him. 
"We  say  that  Slavery  can  exist  there  only  by  force  of  positive  law"  This  carries  the 
implied  admission  that  it  does  thus  exist  in  the  Slave  States,  and  might  thus  be 
established  in  Kansas.  Granting  them  this,  the  slaveholders  readily  claim  their 
"rights  of  property ,"  and  very  plausibly  claim  their  equal  rights,  with  Northern  citi- 
zens, of  carrying  their  "property"  into  the  Territories.  The  true  way  to  silence 
this  clamor  is,  to  deny  the  right  of  property  altogether.  They  have  no  such  "  pro- 
perty "  to  be  carried  anywhere,  and  the  Constitution  recognizes  no  such  property. 
We  have  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Madison,  that  in  the  Federal  Convention,  he  himself 
objected  to  any  such  recognition,  and  that  the  Convention,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Ran- 
dolph, unanimously  changed  the  word  "servitude"  to  "service,"  in  the  Apportion- 
ment clause,  on  purpose  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  any  such  recognition.  The 
Madison  papers  also  prove  that  in  the  same  clause,  the  appotionment  of  taxes  was 
intended  to  be  based  upon  the  number  of  wealth-earning  inhabitants,  not  upon  any 
number  of  slaves,  more  or  less,  considered  as  property.  Neither  the  rendition  nor 
the  importation  clause  describe  or  recognize  property  in  man.  No  Constitutional 
obligation,  or  compact,  or  treaty,  can  therefore  be  pleaded  in  favor  of  the  claim  of  a 
right  to  carry  slave  "property"  into  the  Territories. 


44  The,  Presidential  Election. 

of  a  nation's  freedom  ?  If  so,  that  party  may  hang  together,  and 
do  public  service.  If  not,  it  must  fall  in  pieces,  speedily,  or  live 
only  to  hinder  the  progress  of  freedom. 

THE  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTION. — CAUSES  OF  "REPUBLICAN" 
DEFEAT. 

The  Republican  party  and  its  candidate  have  sustained  a  defeat. 
Whether,  or  in  what  degree,  that  defeat  has  been  owing  to  the 
defects  and  errors  we  have  pointed  out,  we  leave  for  others  to 
judge  and  determine.  That  party  has  not  failed  for  want  of  sup- 
port from  the  great  body  of  "Free-Soilers"  and  "Abolitionists." 
Whether  wisely  or  unwisely,  these,  with  inconsiderable  exceptions, 
have  cast  their  votes  for  Col.  Fremont.  If  it  be  true,  as  they 
have  maintained,  that  men  always  "throw  away  their  votes" 
when  they  so  vote  as  to  fail  of  electing  their  candidates,  then  they 
have,  in  this  case,  thrown  away  theirs.  But  if  no  vote  is  truly 
saved,  except  that  which  is  cast  in  favor  of  truth  and  righteous- 
ness, if  no  Presidential  vote  is  saved,  except  that  which  is  cast  for 
the  abolition  of  Slavery  where  it  exists,  and  for  the  liberation  of 
our  four  millions  of  Slaves — and  if,  in  reality,  no  other  vote  is  an 
effective  vote  for  the  deliverance  of  the  country  from  the  power 
of  the  Slavery  Oligarchy,  whose  control  has  been  proved  by  the 
experience  of  eighty  years  to  be  involved  in  the  fact  of  its  per- 
mitted existence,  then  the  almost  uncounted  few  who  have  cast 
their  votes  for  Gerrit  Smith  and  Samuel  McFarland  have  NOT 
lost  THEIR  votes.  They  have  recorded  them  in  favor  of  the  only 
true  course  for  the  friends  of  liberty — the  only  course  that,  under  the 
moral  and  providential  government  of  a  just  God,  promises  success. 
They  have  set  an  example  which,  if  followed  by  a  majority  of  the 
voters  in  each  of  the  non-slaveholding  States,  would  insure  the  deliv- 
erance, not  only  of  Kansas,  but  of  the  entire  country,  and  all  its  inhab- 
itants. They  have  set  an  example  which,  if  it  had  been  set  by  all  Abo- 
litionists and  Free-Soilers,  would  have  shaped  the  platform,  and  de- 
termined the  qualifications  of  the  candidates  of  the  opponents  of 
Slavery,  for  the  next  Presidential  contest — an  advantage  that 
might  perhaps  have  decided,  even  at  this  late  day,  the  nation's 
destiny.  As  it  is,  they  enjoy  the  consciousness  of  having  voted 
in  accordance  with  the  explicit  rules  of  God's  word,  and  the  prin- 
ciples of  unchanging  right.  N"or  can  they  be  taunted,  neither  by 
their  friends  nor  their  enemies,  with  having  deserted  the  slave,  nor 
contradicted  their  principles.  And  under  the  circumstances  of  the 
case,  no  one  can  say  that  the  "Republican"  candidates  have  lost 


The  Presidential  Election.  45 

their  election,  for  want  of  their  votes.  Had  they  all  voted  for 
Fremont,  the  result  would  not  have  been  changed. 

From  this  last  statement  it  may  be  inferred  that  nothing  could 
possibly  have  been  gamed  to  the  Republican  party  by  their  adop- 
tion of  an  Abolition  platform.  It  may  be  said  that  such  a  plat- 
form would  have  repelled  tens  of  thousands,  who  have  now  voted 
with  them,  while  it  would  have  attracted  but  an  inconsiderable 
few  in  their  places. 

The  inference  is  by  no  means  a  legitimate  one.  It  is  freely  ad- 
mitted that  large  numbers  who  now  voted  with  them,  would  have 
been  startled  and  offended  by  an  Abolition  platform.  But  large 
numbers  even  of  these  might  have  been  won  over,  before  the 
election,  by  the  clear  and  impregnable  arguments  that  might  have 
been  forced  upon  their  attention.  The  apprehended  loss  of  num- 
bers, from  this  source,  might  have  been,  in  this  manner,  greatly 
reduced. 

Add  to  this,  that  a  proper  exposure  of  the  fallacies  and  absurdi- 
ties of  the  Democratic  platform — an  exposure  which  nothing  but 
an  Abolition  platform  would  have  enabled  the  Republicans  to 
have  made  and  to  have  promulgated  by  all  their  public  speakers,  and 
through  all  their  widely-circulated  journals,  would  doubtless  have 
opened  the  eyes  of  many  thousands  to  the  true  issue  before  the 
country,  and  the  true  way  of  meeting  it  at  the  ballot-box.  Large 
numbers  connected  with  the  Democratic  party,  and  who  have  been 
persuaded  to  remain  and  vote  with  it,  under  the  notion  that  by  so 
doing  they  were  only  voting  for  "State  Equality"  and  "State 
Rights,"  but  not  for  the  extension  of  Slavery,  might  have  dis- 
covered their  mistake  and  rallied  with  the  friends  of  freedom.  The 
large  numbers  in  the  so-called  "  American "  party,  to  whom  the 
Republican  editors  concede  a  desire  to  promote  the  cause  of  free- 
dom, but  whose  cooperation  they  have  failed  to  secure,  might,  in 
the  lig  ht  of  the  true  issue,  presented  by  so  large  and  growing  a 
party,  have  been  guided  and  encouraged  to  cast  in  their  lot  with 
them — a  mode  of  cooperation  without  compromise  and  without 
hazard.  It  is  now  claimed  by  leading  Republican  editors,  that 
their  party  would  have  been  victorious,  had  there  been  no  such 
intervening  party  as  the  "American"  between  themselves  and  the 
party  of  Slavery.  Assuming  this  to  be  true,  it  is  quite  evident 
that  the  lines  between  Slavery  and  Freedom  should  have  been 
drawn  with  the  greatest  possible  distinctness,  and  in  a  manner  to 
exhibit — not  (as  has  been  done)  the  slight  shades  of  difference  be- 
tween the  Republican  party  and  the  pro-Slavery  Democratic  and 
Whig  parties  as  it  stood  at  the  date  of  the  Compromise-measures 


46  The  Presidential  Election. 

of  1850  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  broad  and  heaven-wide  dis- 
tinction between  the  parties,  as  involving  either  the  deliverance  or 
the  enslavement  of  the  entire  American  people,  Northern  and 
Southern,  and  of  all  hues. 

Such  an  issue,  (and  it  is  the  only  truthful  one,)  had  it  been  pre- 
sented by  so  numerous  and  imposing  a  body  of  men  as  the  Repub- 
lican party,  would  have  clothed  them  with  an  almost  resistless 
power,  and  would  have  compelled  the  attention  of  the  very  nu- 
merous class  of  quiet  citizens,  who  seldom,  if  ever,  approach  the 
polls,  and  who  are  now  free  to  say  that  the  differences  between 
rival  parties  are  seldom  so  clearly  defined  and  vital  as  to  demand 
the  attention  of  those  who  neither  expect  nor  desire  office. 

It  must  be  confessed,  that  two  antagonistic  parties,  on  so  mo- 
mentous a  subject  as  American  Slavery,  but  who  both  agree  that, 
so  far  as  their  action  is  concerned,  not  a  single  Slave  is  to  be  re- 
leased, nor  a  single  rood  of  Slave-soil  reclaimed  to  freedom,  are  in 
rather  a  singular  position !  The  party  desiring  to  make  a  change 
in  the  administration,  should  present,  as  truth  and  humanity  de- 
mand, a  more  bold  and  determined  issue  than  even  the  question 
of  freedom  in  Kansas;  especially  when  it  seems  so  difficult  to 
understand  how  an  administration  is  to  secure  freedom  to  Kansas 
without  disturbing  Slavery  in  Missouri.  It  may  be  a  fault  of  our 
citizens  (but  the  fact  is  to  be  recognized)  that  they  are  much  in 
the  habit  of  demanding  how  and  whether  a  proposed  measure  can 
be  accomplished,  before  they  enlist  in  a  political  revolution  for  the 
purpose  of  effecting  it.  As  "practical  business  men,"  politicians 
should  look  such  a  fact  in  the  face.  After  an  eighty  years'  failure 
in  attempting  non-extension  without  abolition,  the  problem  de- 
mands marked  attention.  The  solution  should,  at  the  least,  be 
worked  out  on  paper,  instead  of  being  taken  for  granted.  If  the 
people  are  to  be  enlisted  in  any  further  efforts,  they  must  be  con- 
vinced that  they  are  feasible.  To  lay  out  work  for  limiting  the 
ravages  of  a  conflagration,  under  a  pledge  to  throw  no  water  upon 
the  fire  where  it  is  already  raging,  may  not,  perhaps,  be  the  best 
way  of  rousing  the  citizens  to  action,  though  it  may  be  true  that 
many  of  them  would  choose  to  be  excused  from  working  the 
engines. 

Such  are  some  of  the  considerations  that  may  suggest  the  pos- 
sible increase  of  the  number  of  votes  polled  for  the  Republican 
candidates,  had  that  party  avowed  the  purpose  of  Abolition,  in- 
stead of  disclaiming  it.  It  was  an  unfortunate  disclaimer — difficult 
to  be  believed  without  discrediting  their  love  of  freedom — diffi- 
cult to  be  disbelieved  without  impeaching  their  truthfulness.  All 


The  Presidential  Election.  47 

the  odium  of  being  an  Abolition  party,  attached  to  the  Republi- 
can party,  because  it  disputed  the  supremacy  of  the  Slave-power.* 
The  affectionate  confidence  and  enthusiastic  support  due  to  a  tho- 
rough and  out-spoken  Abolition  party,  it  could  not  command,  to 
counterbalance  the  disadvantage.  Its  disclaimers  could  neither 
disarm  its  enemies,  nor  satisfy  the  selfishly  cautious  and  wary. 
They  were  effectual  only  to  cut  the  smews  of  its  own  strength, 
and  disarm  and  discourage  its  best  and  most  self-denying  friends. 
All  over  the  Free  States,  there  were  scattered  and  isolated  Aboli- 
tionists, whose  tireless  and  gratuitous  labors  in  their  respective 
neighborhoods  would  have  infused  new  life  into  the  canvass,  but 
for  the  ungracious  disclaimer — but  who  could  now  rally  only 
strength  enough,  with  conscientious  qualms  and  misgivings,  to  cast 
their  own  solitary,  hesitating  votes.  High  over  these  there  was  ONE, 
who  is  called  in  the  Scriptures,  "THE  REFUGE  OF  THE  OPPRESSED," 
who  regarded  that  disclaimer  as  an  affront  to  Himself,  in  the  per- 
sons of  his  outcast  and  despised  ones,  whom  He  cherishes  as  the 
apple  of  his  eye.  In  His  hands  are  the  hearts  and  the  destinies  of 
all.  The  party  that  would  contend,  successfully,  against  "the  ag- 
gressions of  the  Slave-power,"  must  enlist  HIM.  "He  that  stoppeth 
his  ear  at  the  cry  of  the  poor,  shall  cry  himself  and  not  be  heard" 
— is  one  of  the  inexorable  laws  of  His  administration. 

There  is  nothing  improbable,  then,  in  the  supposition,  that  an 
increase  of  votes,  and  even  a  majority  over  their  opponents,  might 
have  been  secured  by  the  Republican  party,  had  they  boldly  and 
consistently  taken  the  position  of  radical  Abolitionists,  making  ag- 
gressive assults  against  Slavery,  instead  of  acting  on  the  defensive. 
An  additional  confirmation  of  this  may  be  found  in  the  well-known 
tact,  almost  everywhere  noticed  and  commented  upon,  that  the 
masses  of  the  Republican  party  are  far  ahead  of  their  leaders — 
that  disclaimers  of  Abolitionism,  in  public  speeches  of  Republicans, 
are  commonly  received  coldly,  or  have  been  greeted  with  but 
feeble  responses ;  while  the  strongest  expressions  against  Slavery, 
and  of  a  determination  to  wage  against  it  an  aggressive  and  un- 


*  Some  of  the  Republican  editors,  since  their  defeat,  have  noticed  the  fact,  and 
have  complained,  that  all  their  disclaimers  of  Abolition,  and  their  pledges  to  let 
Slavery  alone  in  the  States,  have  had  no  effect  to  disarm  the  opposition  of  their 
opponents,  or  to  win  over  proselytes  from  their  ranks.  "Although  our  platform" 
(say  they)  "  guarantied  the  most  sacred  protection  to  the  slaveholder,  who  had 
acquired  property  under  the  Constitution,  our  offers  were  rejected.  The  South  did 
not  believe  us,  and  of  course,  went  with  the  party  that  had  been  tried,  and  that 
had  been  found  reliable."  The  President's  Message,  and  the  speeches  in  Congress 
concerning  it,  contain  ample  proofs  of  the  truth  of  this  statement. 


48  The  Presidential  Election. 

compromising  warfare,  whenever  those  sentiments  have  been 
uttered,  have  been  hailed  with  the  most  enthusiastic  applause. 
Had  the  Pittsburg  and  Philadelphia  Conventions  been  as  distin- 
guished for  boldness  and  decision,  as  they  confessedly  were  for 
timidity  and  caution,  the  response  of  the  masses  of  the  friends  of 
freedom,  including  a  majority  of  their  country  editors,  would  have 
been  as  prompt  and  as  decided  as  it  was  seen  to  have  been  dila- 
tory and  hesitant.  There  is  no  calculating  the  difference  between 
the  two  states  of  feeling  in  public  exigencies  like  these. 

But  suppose  it  to  be  otherwise.  Be  it  so,  for  the  argument's 
sake,  that  the  adoption  of  a  higher  standard  would  have  been  fol- 
lowed by  a  defeat.  What  then  ?  The  party  has  sustained  a  de- 
feat, now.  The  cautiousness  of  its  leaders  has  not  prevented  that 
result.  And  a  defeat  on  a  thorough,  radical  Abolition  issue  would 
have  been  no  worse  than  a  defeat  upon  the  lower  issue  of  freedom 
for  Kansas.  It  would  not  have  been  half  as  bad.  More  than  this 
might  be  said.  A  victory  would  have  been  involved  in  such  a  de- 
feat, even  with  a  reduction  of  many  thousands  of  votes. 

Let  it  be  supposed,  for  illustration,  that  the  Pittsburg  and  Phi- 
ladelphia Conventions  had  erected  for  their  platform  the  Federal 
Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the.  States ;  suppose  they  had  nominated 
candidates  to  correspond  with  that  platform ;  let  it  be  conceded 
that,  under  that  bold  platform,  sustained  by  the  same  leaders, 
heralded  by  the  same  editors,  and  advocated  by  the  same  orators, 
the  number  of  their  votes  cast  at  the  election,  instead  of  being  in- 
creased, as  perhaps  they  might  have  been,  would  have  been  di- 
minished to  one  half  their  present  number.  Who  does  not  see 
that  such  a  defeat,  on  SUCH  AN  ISSUE,  would  have  been  a  vast  gain 
.over  the  defeat  that  has  had  to  be  encountered,  now  ?  ISTay — that 
it  would  have  been  a  victory  ?  A  more  glorious  and  more  im- 
portant victory  than  would  have  been  gained  by  carrying  the  late 
election  upon  the  present  Republican  platform?  Would  it  not 
have  been  worth  more  to  Kansas  ?  Who  believes  that  a  Demo- 
cratic Administration — either  by  Pierce  or  Buchanan — directed 
by  the  Slave-power,  would  dare  to  lay  a  finger  upon  freedom,  or 
upon  the  free  settlers  in  Kansas,  if  such  a  vote  towards  the  aboli- 
tion of  Slavery  were  hanging  over  their  heads,  or  rolling  up  stead- 
ily before  them  ?  Who  doubts  that,  instead  of  planning  new  ag- 
gressions, as  they  now  do,  even  threatening  to  reopen,  by  Federal 
authority,  the  African  Slave-trade,  and  to  establish  Slavery  in  Nica- 
ragua, they  would  have  been  thrown  back  again  upon  the  defens- 
ive, quite  ready  to  propose  a  compromise  that  should  leave  them 


The  Presidential  Election.  49 

in  their  present  condition  ?*  Were  such  a  bargain,  on  our  part, 
admissible,  (as  it  is  not,)  what  better  or  other  method  could  be 
devised  for  securing  it,  than  to  place  the  Slave-power  in  a  position 
to  clutch  greedily,  for  the  chance  of  it  ? 

However  invincible  the  347,000  slaveholders  may  be,  under  the 
"  Republican"  pledge  of  security  from  the  interference  of  Aboli- 
tionists, that  petty  handful  of  tyrants  would  tremble  like  Belshaz- 
zar,  were  one  half  the  late  Presidential  Republican  vote,  a  vote  for 
their  direct  overthrow.  Such  a  vote,  in  1856,  would  have  been 
the  sure  presage  of  complete  triumph  in  1860.  One  half,  nay,  two 
thirds  of  the  late  Republican  vote  might  have  been  spared,  with 
an  indefinite  increase  of  Republican  strength,  to-day.  No  saga- 
cious and  impartial  politician  will  deny  this.  With  such  a  vote 
upon  such  a  platform,  the  Slavery  question,  in  America,  might  have 
been  regarded  to-day,  as  being  prospectively  settled.  The  "  price 
of  negroes"  in  Virginia  would,  ere  this,  have  declined,  and  the  free 
settlers  in  Kansas  would  have  been  basking  in  the  sunlight  of  hope. 

Neither  the  fears  nor  the  consciences  of  the  slaveholders  are 
likely  to  be  effectually  reached  by  any  array  of  Northern  votes  at 
the  ballot-box,  so  long  as  those  votes  are  cast  upon  a  platform  that 
concedes  the  Constitutional  duty  of  protection  to  Slavery  where 
it  already  exists,  recognizes  distinctions  of  color,  and  appeals  to 
anti-Christian  prejudice  by  declaring  itself  to  be  "  the  party  of  the 
WHITE  man." 

As  an  illustration  of  this,  we  present  an  extract  from  the  speech 
of  Ex-Governor  Floyd,  of  Virginia,  delivered  in  New-York  City, 
as  reported  in  the  New-York  Times,  of  October  3d.  This  speech 
was  understood  to  have  been  designed  to  counteract  the  previous 
speech  of  Mr.  Banks,  who  had  distinctly  appealed  to  the  white 
race,  as  a  class.  Perceiving,  no  doubt,  the  incongruity  of  this 
with  "  Republican"  declamations  against  the  extension  of  Slavery, 
founded  on  its  despotism  and  barbarity,  yet  coupled  with  disclaimers 
of  any  intention  to  interfere  with  it  in  the  States,  Gov.  Floyd  said: 

"If  they  have  in  contemplation  a  practical  policy,  why  not  avow  it  distinctly?  Is 
it  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  the  African  race  ?  "Why  not  say  what  they 

*  Since  this  paragraph  was  written,  the  slaveholders  in  Congress  and  elsewhere, 
have  "  backed  down"  in  respect  to  the  revival  of  the  African  slave-trade.  And 
the  reason  of  it  is  quite  apparent.  It  was  the  fruit  of  a  general  panic  among  the 
slaveholders,  arising  from  the  apprehension  that  "  Eepublicans"  were  becoming 
"  Radical  Abolitionists"  !  "When  the  panic  shall  have  subsided,  (as,  under  super- 
abundant "  Republican"  disclaimers  it  is  likely  to  do,)  the  slaveholders  will  natu- 
rally settle  back  again  to  their  old  level,  unless  the  "  Radicals"  shall  show  them- 
selves strong  in  the  field. 

4 


50  The  Presidential  Election. 

propose,  what  they  desire  ?  Let  me,  as  a  Southern  man,  offer  a  suggestion :  these 
friends  of  the  negro  race,  if  sincere  in  their  professions,  have  a  duty  to  perform  to 
the  race.  "When  they  shall  take  practical  steps  to  elevate  the  race,  we  will  believe 
in  their  honesty  and  sincerity.  We  must  be  excused  from  believing — the  world 
must  be  excused  from  believing — in  their  sincerity,  until  their  avowed  policy  pro- 
poses some  amelioration  of  the  black  man's  condition.  Let  them  begin  with  the  free 
black  man.  Why  did  this  '  Free  soil,  free  speech,  free  men '  party  exclude  the 
colored  man  forever  from  free  Kansas?  After  all,  do  these  philanthropists  not  con- 
sider the  African  to  be  a  '  MAN  ?'  If  otherwise,  why  exclude  him  from  the  soil 
'consecrated  to  Freedom,'  as  they  have  done  by  the  Topeka  proceedings?  This 
looks  like  a  deception  and  a  cheat.  But  if  they  be  honest,  let  the  experiment  be 
made  of  elevating  the  black  man  to  an  equality  with  the  white.  Why  do  they  not 
propose  to  take  off  the  galling  disabilities  under  which  public  opinion  has  placed 
this  race  ?  Can  they  not  declare  that  the  negro  man  shall  be  admitted  to  the  pro- 
fessions, to  the  Legislature,  to  the  parlors,  to  the  hearthstone  ?  If  this  is  done, 
mankind  will  believe  in  then'  sincerity.  Until  then,  there  must  be  doubt.  But  if 
public  opinion  in  the  '  Free  States '  is  not  yet  prepared  for  this,  why  not  give  these 
people  a  trial  through  the  means  of  the  African  Colonization  Society?  Virginia 
gives  thirty  thousand  dollars  a  year  to  this  enterprise.  What  do  the  '  friends  ot 
Freedom '  give  ?  A  small  percentage  of  the  money  expended  in  Sharp's  rifles  for 
bleeding  Kansas,  would  presently  demonstrate  the  capability  of  the  negro  man  for 
self-government  in  Africa — if  he  is  capable.  But  probably  this  course  would  not 
affect  materially  the  Presidential  election,  and  that  no  doubt  is  the  chief  object  with 
our  philanthropic  friends." 

Gov.  Floyd  evidently  intimated  that  their  exclusion  of  free 
colored  men  from  the  Territories,  betrayed  the  hollowness  of  all 
their  pretensions  to  moral  principle  and  philanthropy,  and  could 
not  exemplify  a  higher  principle  than  that  of  selfishness — the  prin- 
ciple of  expatriation  so  extensively  patronized  by  the  slaveholders. 
And  he  could  not  be  made  to  believe  that  there  was  any  honest, 
conscientious  opposition  to  Slavery  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  occu- 
pied such  a  position.  Yet  Gov.  Floyd's  just  rebuke  was  eagerly 
circulated  by  "  Republican "  journals,  in  confirmation  of  their 
abundant  disclaimers  of  affinity  with  Abolition.  Tttey  seemed  not 
to  have  felt  the  force  of  the  rebuke,  nor  to  have  understood  how 
their  position  in  this  respect,  strengthened  the  slavery  party,  at  the 
North  as  well  as  at  the  South,  while  it  tended,  almost  resistlessly, 
to  neutralize  the  force  of  all  those  eloquent  appeals,  lectures,  ser- 
mons, and  speeches,  whether  by  clergymen  or  politicians,  on  which 
their  cause  had  mainly  to  rely,  and  which  constituted  the  chief 
element  of  their  strength,  with  the  masses  of  the  people.  Anti- 
Slavery  appeals  must,  of  necessity,  lose  the  greater  part  of  their 
force,  when  placed  in  companionship  with  proscription  of  the  op- 
pressed race,  and  disclaimers  of  Abolitionism.  To  suppose  other- 
wise, would  be  to  ignore  the  connection  between  moral  cause  and 
effect,  or  to  doubt  whether  man  is  gifted  with  moral  discernment 
and  reason. 


The  Presidential  Election.  51 

Of  the  precise  extent  to  which  this  lamentable  error  in  the  Re- 
publican leaders  obtained,  it  would  be  difficult  to  say.  We  have 
already  noticed  its  prominence  in  the  Republican  Platform,  in  the 
letter  of  its  Presidential  candidate,  in  its  chief  political  speakers,  . 
and  in  its  political  press.  It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  illustrations 
from  such  sources,  to  any  desired  extent,  if  we  could  spare  room. 
It  only  remains  to  give  a  specimen  from  the  religious  press,  and  from 
certain  theological  supporters  of  the  new  party.  We  can  not  bet- 
ter do  this  than  by  making  an  extract  from  an  article  in  the  New- 
York  Independent,  of  October  16,  under  the  head  of  '•'•The  Voice 
of  a  Conservative?  in  which  the  editor  says : 

"  But  in  Connecticut,  one  profound  and  sagacious  logician,  a  venerable  theologian, 
one  of  those  '  Nestors '  among  ministers  of  the  Gospel  whom  the  Journal  of  Com- 
merce, a  few  years  ago,  dishonored  with  its  commendation,  has  spoken  out  for  the 
special  benefit  of  such  men.  His  '  thoughts,'  as  printed  for  local  distribution  in  hie 
own  State,  are  before  us.  We  would  gladly  republish  the  whole,  if  there  were  time 
and  space  for  their  publication  in  this  sheet.  We  give  all  that  we  can." 

The  first  of  these  quotations  is  devoted  to  a  statement  concern- 
ing the  Democratic  party,  so  called.  And  he  says  they  seem  to 
have  been  frightened  into  a  support  of  "  Border  Ruffianism  "  by  a 
belief  that  "  the  Abolitionists,  so  called,  have  become  a  great  and 
dangerous  party."  The  "  venerable  "  writer  then  proceeds  : 

"  I  now  ask :  WHO  GAVE  THIS  FEARFUL  POWER  TO  ABOLITIONISM  ?  Who  ?  The 
Whig  party?  No,  not  they.  True,  old,  conservative  Whiggery,  like  that  of  Clay 
and  Webster,  never  gave  to  Abolitionism  one  particle  of  its  power.  The  abolition 
of  Slavery  never  was  a  doctrine  of  the  Whig  party.  Its  doctrine  was,  Slavery  at 
the  will  of  each  sovereign  State,  but  no  further.  Whiggery  and  Abolitionism  had  no 
fellowship.  They  were  political  adversaries.  Besides,  when  the  so  called  Aboli- 
tionism began  to  have,  or  to  be  supposed  to  have,  power,  politically,  and  thus  to 
become  formidable,  the  Whig  party  was  dead.  It  had  been  killed  chiefly  by  its 
own  folly,  in  not  maintaining  its  own  entirety,  and  in  not  giving  prominence,  as  the 
exigency  demanded,  to  the  doctrine  common  to  itself  and  to  the  Democracy — THE 

NON-EXTENSION  OF  SLAVERY." 

The  writer  (says  the  Independent)  "  holds  that  true  Whigs  are 
now,  as  they  always  were,  opposed  to  the  extension  of  Slavery." 
The  Republican  party,  he  understands,  occupies  the  same  ground, 
and  thus  he  appeals  in  its  behalf: 

"  Friends  of  a  common  country  1 — a  question  for  all  honest  men — shall  the  evils 
we  feel  be  terminated — shall  the  sorer  calamities  we  fear,  be  averted  ?  Then, 
whether  Whigs  or  Democrats — by  whatever  name  you  are  called— renounce,  con- 
demn, resist  the  doctrine  of  Extension.  .  Vote  for  a  President  who  will  not  disturb 
Slavery  where  it  is,  but  will  stay  every  step  of  its  progress.  Thus  meet  the  great 
exigency  of  your  distracted,  afflicted  country.  Thus  stand  on  the  broad  but  single 
plank  of  the  Republican  platform.  Thus  unite  the  honest  men  and  true  patriots. 


52  The  Presidential  Election. 

Thus,  as  the  only  means  and  method,  give  Abolitionism  proper,  so  profound  a 
burial,  that  it  shall  trouble  and  disturb  no  more.  Thus  concede  to  each  sovereign 
State  the  right  to  regulate  its  domestic  institutions  as  guaranteed  by  the  Consti- 
tution and  the  principles  of  comity  between  sister  States.  Thus  restore  the  har- 
mony of  former  days  to  our  happy  Union.  Thus  save  this  great  people  whom  the 
God  of  our  fathers  will  delight  to  bless." 

The  people  are  thus  taught  by  "the  venerable  Theologian," 
that  the  blessing  of  "the  God  of  our  fathers"  is  to  be  secured — 
not  by  "breaking  every  yoke,  and  letting  the  oppressed  go  free" 
— not  by  "executing  justice  between  a  man  and  his  neighbor" — 
not  by  "proclaiming  liberty  throughout  all  the  land,  unto  all  the 
inhabitants  thereof  "-^-but  by  "the  single  plank  of  the  Republican 
platform "— namely — not  "to  disturb  Slavery  where  it  is,"  but 
"stay  every  step  of  its  progress,"  and  "give  Abolition  proper,  so 
profound  a  burial,  that  it  shall  trouble  and  disturb  no  more,"  and 
"thus  restore  the  harmony  of  former  days  to  our  Union" — when 
no  agitation  against  Slavery  existed  among  those  who  enjoyed 
their  own  freedom!  In  what  portion  of  his  Bible  this  "oldest 
living  Professor  in  Theology  in  the  United  States — the  oldest  Pro- 
fessor of  any  Theological  Seminary" — discovered  this  national 
remedy  for  the  national  sin  of  oppression,  we  are  not  informed — 
nor  from  what  School  of  Ethics  such  political  maxims  are  derived, 
unless  it  be  from  that  which,  a  number  of  years  since,  supported 
the  Presidential  nominee  of  the  Whig  party  by  advising  Christian 
citizens  to  "vote  for  the  lesser  devil  of  the  two."  From  the  theo- 
logical and  literary  position  ascribed  to  him  by  the  Independent, 
and  from  his  location  in  Connecticut,  and  his  allusions  to  a  public 
meeting  in  "New-Haven,"  the  identity  of  the  "Voice"  may  be 
inferred. 

Not  less  remarkable  is  the  Editorial  with  which  these  extracts 
are  accompanied.  Says  the  Independent: 

"  Thus  does  the  oldest  living  Professor  of  Theology  in  the  United  States — the 
oldest  Professor  in  any  Theological  Seminary — appeal  to  the  patriotism  of  the  whole 
country  in  this  great  crisis  of  our  history.  "What  he  calls  'Abolitionism  proper,' 
is,  in  a  just  and  reasonable  use  of  words,  Abolitionism  most  improper.  Mr.  G-ar. 
rison,  Mr.  "Wendell  Phillips,  and  others  of  that  sort,  who  either  deny  all  Govern- 
ment, or  denounce  the  Constitution  as  a  pro-Slavery  compact,  and  who  oppose  the 
election  of  Mr.  Fremont,  because  it  will  relieve  and  pacify  the  public  mind — the 
self-styled  Radical  Abolitionists,  on  the  other  hand,  who  hold  that  Slavery  is  abol- 
ished already  in  all  the  States  by  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  therefore  insist  on 
throwing  away  their  votes  in  this  hour  of  their  country's  direst  peril — all  who  ex- 
haust themselves  in  speculative  agitations,  and  refuse  to  do  any  thing  practical  or 
tangible  against  the  extension  of  Slavery — are  Abolitionists  in  no  good  sense,  and 
therefore  are  not  '  Abolitionists  proper.'  But  if  the  venerable  Professor  sees  fit  to 
call  them  so,  we  will  not  quarrel  with  him  for  the  dishonor  put  on  the  names  of 


The  Presidential  Election.  53 

Franklin,  of  Jay,  of  Stiles,  of  Hopkins,  of  Clarkson,  and  of  Wilberforce.  Rather 
do  we  thank  him  for  this  appeal,  and  thank  God  who  has  given  him  grace  to 
make  it." 

Did  the  learned  editor  of  the  New- York  Independent  intend  to 
have  his  readers  believe,  that  Franklin,  Jay,  Stiles,  Hopkins, 
Clarkson,  and  Wilberforce,*  labored  only  "  against  the  extension 
of  Slavery;"  and  that,  like  the  late  Whig  party,  uthe  abolition 
•  of  Slavery  was  never  their  doctrine ;"  and  that  they  "  would  never 
distub  Slavery  where  it  is"  ?  In  what  page  of  their  writings,  on 
what  page  of  history,  will  he  find  proof  of  that  f  Will  the  history 
of  the  abolition  of  Slavery  in  our  Northern  States,  or  in  the  British 
West-Indies  corroborate  such  a  statement  ?  Or  can  it  be  shown 
that  those  results  were  secured  by  the  potency  of  mere  "non-ex- 
tension" ?  Or,  that  "there  is  nothing  practical  nor  tangible "  in 
Abolition  ?  In  the  use  of  what  Lexicon  will  he  justify  his  asser- 
tion that  that  is  "Abolitionism  most  improper,"  which  demands 
the  abolition  of  Slavery,  rather  than  its  mere  "non-extension"  ? 
When  "Radical  Abolitionists"  maintain  (what  no  man  living  can 
gainsay)  that  the  Federal  Constitution  clothes  our  National  Gov- 

*  "Franklin,  Jay,  Stiles,  and  Hopkins,"  like  modern  Abolitionists,  knew  how  to 
oppose  the  extension  of  Slavery,  without  pledging  themselves  against  the  abolition 
of  Slavery.  But  some  of  them  erred,  as  did  Clarkson  and  Wilberforce,  in  suppos- 
ing that  the  abolition  of  the  African  slave-trade  would  do  away  Slavery.  Clarkson 
lived  long  enough  to  see  and  lament  his  error.  His  later  efforts  were  directed  to 
the  immediate  abolition  of  West-India  Slavery,  by  proving  (as  "Radical  Aboli- 
tionists" in  America  now  do)  that  negro  Slavery  in  the  British  Colonies,  had  always 
been  illegal,  and  was  totally  unsupported  by  any  valid  law.  As  we  say  that  the 
Federal  Constitution  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence  are  sufficient  authority 
for  abolishing  Slavery,  so  he  said  the  same  (as  we  also  do)  of  the  British  Constitu- 
tion, Common  Law,  and  Magna  Charta.  This  was  "  the  speculative  agitation"  that 
abolished  Slavery  in  the  British  West-Indies.  Granville  Sharpe  (whom  the  Inde- 
pendent does  not  name)  had  previously,  by  the  same  "  speculative  agitation,"  abol- 
ished Slavery  in  England.  And  he  had  the  sagacity  to  foresee  and  predict,  that  all 
efforts  for  abolishing  the  African  slave-trade,  disconnected  with  efforts  for  abolish- 
ing Slavery  itself,  would  prove  abortive.  [This  was  verified  by  the  British  Par- 
liament, in  1845,  up  to  which  time  the  slave-trade  had  doubled,  instead  of 
decreasing.]  Hopkins,  whom  the  Independent  thinks  is  "dishonored"  by  being 
named  in  company  with  modern  Abolitionists,  is  the  earliest  "immediate  Aboli- 
tionist" on  record,  as  his  writings  and  his  stringent  Church  discipline  of  slave- 
holders attest.  Dr.  Edwards  and  John  Wesley  were  equally  "  radical"  in  their 
Abolitionism.  But  these  also,  as  well  as  Granville  Sharpe,  are  omitted  from  the 
Independent's  list  of  "  honored  names" — though  "  Franklin,  Jay,  Stiles,  and  Hop- 
kins" were  not  ashamed  of  them.  It  would  be  well  if  the  successors  of  such  min- 
isters, instead  of  "garnishing  their  sepulchres,"  could  emulate  their  manliness, 
and  "  honor"  their  principles. 


54  What  would  have  been  gained-by  a  Victory 

eminent  with  ample  powers  to  abolish  Slavery,  does  he  consider 
it  Christian-like  to  ridicule  them  as  absurdly  seeking  to  do  over 
again  what  has  already  been  done,  because  they  ask  that  those 
Constitutional  powers  shall  be  exercised  ?  And  when  God  bids 
them  vote  for  "just  men,"  who  will  "execute  justice  for  all  the 
oppressed,"  did  he  think  to  deter  them  from  obedience  by  the  fear 
of  "  casting  away  their  votes"  ?  Can  he  show  them  how  they 
could  have  avoided  "casting  away  their  votes,"  by  voting  for  an 
equally  unsuccessful  candidate,  who  was  pledged  not  to  do  what 
God  explicitly  requires  to  be  done  ?  Is  there  no  way  for  Aboli- 
tionists to  "save  their  votes''  but  by  casting  them  with  those 
whose  spirit  and  aims  are  here  expressed  in  the  New- York  Inde- 
pendent f 

If  the  Professors  of  Theology,  and  if  the  reputedly  anti-slavery 
religious  editors  supporting  the  Republican  party,  are  represented 
truthfully  in  these  extracts,  and  if  the  political  ethics  of  the  party 
rise  no  higher  than  its.theological  standard,  the  vigilant  friends  of 
liberty  and  abolition,  in  this  and  other  lands,  will  judge — posterity 
will  judge — how  much  has  been  lost  to  the  slave,  to  humanity,  to 
true  religion,  by  the  failure  of  the  "Republican"  party  of  1856,  to 
elect  its  candidates. 


WHAT  WOULD  HAVE  BEEN  GAINED  BY  A  VICTORY  ON  THE 
REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM? 

Some  further  light  on  this  question,  may  perhaps  be  gathered 
from  such  editorials  in  the  Republican  journals,  as  the  following, 
which  we  copy  from  the  Hew- York  Times  of  November  11,  a  few 
days  after  the  results  of  the  election  had  transpired.  The  extract 
is  taken  from  a  leader,  entitled,  "English  Press  on  American 
Affairs."  The  Times  is  commenting  upon  an  article  in  "  the 
London  Morning  Post,  of  a  recent  date,"  respecting  our  Presi- 
dential election,  and  anticipating  "  internal  feuds"  and  "  violent 
conflicts  between  the  Legislature  and  the  Executive,  whichever 
candidate  may  succeed."  To  which  the  New-  York  Times  replies : 

"  The  Morning  Post  has  probably  learned  before  this,  that  our  October  prelimi- 
nary elections  fixed  the  character  of  the  next  Congress,  to  come  in  with  the  new 
President,  and  that  in  the  event  of  Mr.  BUCHANAN'S  success,  himself  a  Northern 
man,  he  will  be  sure  to  have  the  support  and  counsel  of  a  large  party  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  as  in  the  Senate,  from  the  Northern  States,  directly  from  the 
psople.  And  that  in  the  opposite  event  of  Col.  FREMONT'S  election,  his  first  pur- 
pose would  be  so  to  conduct  his  administration  as  to  conciliate  the  Southern 
party  in  Congress,  backed  as  they  will  be  by  forty-five  or  fifty  members  from  the 


on  the  Republican  Platform  f  55 

great  Middle  and  North- Western  States,  so  far  as  it  would  enable  him  to  conserve 
the  material  interests  of  the  whole  country,  and  to  preserve  if  possible,  from  further 
sectional  violence  tne  workings  of  our  free  institutions." 

Undoubtedly  it  would  be  proper  and  wise  for  any  President  to 
preserve  the  country  from  "  sectional  violence."  But  the  way  in 
which  the  Times  assumes  that  Col.  Fremont  would  have  effected 
this,  deserves  our  attention.  He  would  have  done  this  by  making 
it  his  first  object  to  conciliate  the  Southern  party  in  Congress,  and 
this  would  be  effected  by  the  measures  of  his  administration.  The 
same  idea  had  been  thrown  out,  before  the  election,  by  the  New- 
York  Herald,  and  other  Republican  journals.  "  The  South  will 
be  astonished,"  said  they,  "the  South  will  be  satisfied,"  "when 
they  learn  how  conservative  and  conciliating  the  course  of  Col. 
Fremont's  administration  will  be." 

Now,  bearing  in  mind  that  the  grand  point  in  dispute,  as  we 
have  shown,  is  whether  the  Federal  Government  shall  protect  the 
right  of  slaveholders  to  carry  their  slaves  both  into  the  Territories 
or  into  the  States,  wheresoever  they  please,  bearing  in  mind  that 
Col.  Fremont  and  his  platform  and  his  party  are  as  thoroughly 
committed  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Federal  protection  of  slave  pro- 
perty in  the  slave  States  as  Mr.  Buchanan  and  his  party  can  possi- 
bly be,  bearing  in  mind  that  the  original  Republican  doctrine  of 
Federal  prohibition  of  Slavery  in  the  Territories,  including  Kan- 
sas, has  been  virtually  given  up  in  the  later  utterances  of  the  Re- 
publican party,  particularly  in  the  Wall-street  speech  of  Mr. 
Banks,  not  dissented  from  by  Republican  editors ;  bearing  in  mind 
also  the  vote  of  the  House  on  Mr.  Dunn's  bill,  and  on  the  Army 
bill — bearing  in  mind  all  this,  the  question  arises :  In  what  manner 
could  Col.  Fremont,  if  he  had  been  elected  President,  have  so 
shaped  his  administration  as  to  conciliate  the  Southern  party  in 
Congress — the  party  of  Border  Ruffianism,  the  party  of  Preston 
S.  Brooks,  the  party  of  his  admiring  constituents,  the  party  that, 
even  at  the  North,  jeers  at  the  sufferings  of  "  bleeding  Kansas," 
and  that  censures  Sumner  almost  as  much  as  it  does  Bully  Brooks — 
the  party  that  (in  the  case  of  Hon.  John  Cadwallader,  of  Penn- 
sylvania) lauds  "the  praiseworthy  legislation  of  1854,"  described 
by  him,  truly,  as  "  giving  the  slaveholders  access  to  the  Territories 
(of  Kansas  and  Nebraska)  with  their  slaves"  ? 

Yes !  how,  or  by  what  further  concessions  could  the  administra- 
tion of  Col.  Fremont  have  conciliated  "  this  Southern  party  hi 
Congress"  without  giving  up  all  that  the  Republican  party  was 
organized  to  secure  ?  Mr.  Banks  had  already  conceded  (and  the 
Tribune  and  the  Times  had  not  demurred)  that  "  Kansas"  was  to 


56  What  would  have  been  gained  by  a  Victory 

be  "  restored  to  freedom  without  legislative  act  or  the  interfer- 
ence, at  the  hand  of  government,  in  any  way" — that  "no  legisla- 
tion is  required,  and  it  is  not  necessary  that  the  halls  of  Congress 
should  be  again  opened  to  agitation,"  but  that  "  the  people  of  the 
Territory  should  settle  the  question  of  Slavery  for  themselves, 
there."  In  other  words,  Freedom  and  Slavery,  in  the  Territories, 
should  receive  equal  protection — a  thing  impossible  for  any  Presi- 
dent to  carry  out,  in  practice.  But,  would  the  speech  of  Mr. 
Banks  "  conciliate  the  Southern  party  in  Congress"  ?  Did  it  con- 
ciliate Gov.  Floyd  ?  Or  even  the  New- York  Journal  of  Com- 
merce ?  Sow  then  could  a  Republican  administration  have  con- 
ciliated them,  but  by  yielding  to  the  slaveholders  their  right  to  carry 
their  slaves  wherever  they  please  f 

We  suggest  no  impeachment  of  the  integrity  of  Col.  Fremont. 
It  was  the  New-  York  Times  that  suggested  his  powers  of  concili- 
ation. It  would  have  needed  no  seer  to  predict  that  in  such  an 
embarrassing  situation,  he  would  have  been  urged  by  the  leaders 
of  his  own  party,  including  such  statesmen  as  Mr.  Banks,  to  go  as 
far  as  possible  in  order  to  conciliate  the  South.  And  it  would  have 
been  a  situation  involving  great  danger.  We  say  not  that,  as 
President,  Col.  Fremont  and  his  advisers  would  not  have  stood  as 
firm  for  liberty  as  any  other  men  living  could  do,  attempting  to 
stand  on  the  Republican  platform,  and  sliding  from  it  no  farther 
than  its  sidling  position  and  slippery  nature  would  inevitably  com- 
pel them  to  do.  They  would  doubtless  have  done  all  that,  with 
their  Constitutional  theories,  they  were  able  to  do.  The  question 
is,  how,  or  whether,  it  could  have  been  of  any  substantial  benefit 
to  the  cause  of  Freedom  ? 

In  order  to  accomplish  great  and  good  ends,  there  must  be  not 
only  laudable  aims,  but  wise  counsels.  And  public  councils  are 
wise  in  exact  proportion  to  the  inflexibility  of  the  grasp  with  which 
they  fasten  themselves  to  the  great  moral  laws  by  which  God 
governs  the  world.  When  the  platform  of  a  political  party  or 
administration  is  too  narrow  to  embrace  these,  it  would  be  strange 
if  it  did  not  prove  too  narrow  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  a  great 
nation,  especially  in  times  like  the  present.  So  long  as  GOD'S  Con- 
stitution of  Government  requires  the  protection  of  personal  liberty, 
it  must  be  evident  that  no  written  Constitution,  or  constitutional 
theories  that  do  not  recognize  that  duty  of  the  Government,  can 
meet  the  divine  demands.  And  the  Administration  that  fails  of 
doing  this,  fails  utterly,  and  fatally. 

Take  the  case  now  before  us.  The  Republican  party  stands 
pledged  not  to  protect  the  personal  liberties  of  nearly  one  half  of 


on  the  Republican  Platform  f  57 

the  inhabitants  of  nearly  one  half  of  the  States.  Its  views  of  the 
Constitution  forbid  such  protection.  How,  then,  with  those 
views,  could  it  protect  the  liberties  of  the  "  free  settlers  "  in  Kan- 
sas? Suppose  the  Administration  inaugurated,  with  a  working 
majority  of  both  Houses.  How  would  it  go  at  work  ?  And  how 
would  the  work  be  accomplished  ? 

The  most  feasible  thing  we  can  think  of,  is  that  of  admitting 
Kansas  as  a  free  State,  under  its  Constitution  formed  at  Topeka. 
The  House  of  Representatives,  as  before  noticed,  once  passed  a 
bill  to  that  effect.  But  did  it  '*  conciliate  the  Southern  party  in 
Congress"  f  Far  otherwise.  It  was  almost  kicked  out  of  the 
Senate.  Very  evidently  this  plan  would  fail  of  securing  the  paci- 
fication promised  in  the  New-  York  Times.  A  Republican  Sen- 
ate might  however  pass  it,  and  the  Republican  President  might 
sign  it.  But  it  would  be  likely  to  need  strong  Executive  measures 
to  enforce  it.  And  would  not  that  be  a  precedent  of  Federal  in- 
terference with  the  Slavery  question  in  a  "  sovereign  State"  ?  A 
practical  solution  of  the  puzzling  question  how  "  the  United  States  " 
can  "guaranty  to  every  State  in  this  Union  a  Republican  form  of 
Government"  ?  If  this  could  be  done  in  one  State,  why  not  in 
another  f  A  majority  (it  may  be  said)  of  the  people  of  Kansas 
would  desire  it.  Perhaps  a  majority  of  the  people  of  some  of  the 
other  States,  would  desire  the  same.  And  perhaps  the  "  Republi- 
can "  party  would  be  ready  to  "  go  ahead."  Success  to  it,  then, 
say  we,  whatever  might  become  of  its  "  platform  "  and  of  its  dis- 
claimers. 

But,  what  other  course  could  a  Republican  administration  take  ? 
Would  it  legislate  Slavery  out  of  the  Territory  ?  This  was  under- 
stood to  have  been  a  part  of  the  platform,  at  the  beginning.  But, 
if  Mr.  Banks'  speech,  not  dissented  from,  may  be  regarded  a  truth- 
ful exponent  of  the  party,  that  plank  belongs  not  to  the  platform, 
now.  For  months  past,  and  before  the  speech  of  Mr.  Banks,  we 
have  not  heard  it  affirmed.*  But  why  should  it  have  been  laid 

*  It  is  proper  to  mention  that  since  this  was  written,  some  of  the  Republican 
Members  of  Congress  have  reaffirmed  their  original  doctrine.  "Whether  the  same 
policy  that  led  to  its  virtual  repudiation,  during  the  latter  part  of  the  canvass, 
would  have  been  retained  as  a  means  of  "  conciliating  the  Southern  party  in  Con- 
gress," had  the  Republicans  gained  the  election,  is  more  than  we  can  undertake  to 
determine.  It  is  obvious  that  a  President  coming  in  with  a  strong  Northern  vote 
against  the  united  South,  would  have  been  likely  to  feel  a  necessity  of  conciliating 
the  South,  just  as  a  President  coming  in  with  a  strong  Southern  vote  against  the 
North,  would  feel  the  necessity  of  conciliating  the  North.  It  is  nothing  to  the  dis- 
credit of  Fremont,  nor  the  credit  of  Buchanan,  to  notice  that  circumstances  would 
naturally  place  them  in  these  different  positions. 


58  What  would  have  been  gained  by  a  Victory 

aside  ?  Public  discussion,  and  the  tide  of  public  sentiment,  under 
that  discussion,  was  turning  strongly  against  it.  The  right  to 
legislate  Slavery  out  of  the  Territories,  was  found  to  be  repudiated 
by  the  same  principle  that  denies  the  right  to  legislate  Slavery  out 
of  the  States.  Thus  the  "Democrats  "  have  voted.  Thus  too  the 
"American"  party  has  voted.  And  thus  the  leading  "Republi- 
cans "  have  virtually  conceded.  By  its  silence,  the  party  assents. 
How  then  could  the  Republican  party,  if  in  power,  stand  up 
against  the  sentiment?  IDEAS,  not  parties,  not  Presidents,  not 
Cabinets,  control  public  measures. 

But  suppose  a  Republican  administration  should,  by  legislation, 
exclude  Slavery  from  the  Territory.  If  a  majority  of  the  people 
desired  'Slavery,  they  could  change  their  Constitution  and  allow 
Slavery,  so  soon  as  the  Territory  is  admitted  as  a  State.  The 
"  Free  State "  men  of  Kansas  would  then  come  under  the  iron 
slave  Code,  and  the  Republican  administration,  with  its  IDEA  of 
the  Constitution,  and  of  National  responsibilities,  can  not  relieve 
them.* 


Both  parties  varied  their  tone  in  different  localities,  and  according  to  the  suppos- 
ed necessities  of  the  contest.  Thus  the  doctrine  of  Mr.  Banks,  was  adapted  to 
"Wall  street,  but  a  different  one  was  needed  for  the  interior  districts.  The  "Demo- 
cratic" appeals,  at  the  South,  were  of  the  highest  tone  of  pro-Slavery  propagand- 
ism ;  while  at  the  North,  particularly  in  the  rural  districts,  all  this  was  disclaimed, 
and  the  support  of  Mr.  Buchanan  was  advocated  on  the  ground  that  he  was  in 
favor  of  freedom  in  Kansas.  The  rejection  of  both  Pierce  and  Douglas,  at  the  Cin- 
cinnati Convention,  favored  this  pretension.  Toward  the  close  of  the  campaign, 
while  the  Republican  party  seemed  to  be  lowering  its  standard,  the  "Democratic" 
party,  at  the  North,  seemed  to  be  raising  theirs.  As  the  "  Republicans"  lost 
votes  by  their  changed  tone,  so  the  "  Democrats"  gained  votes  by  theirs.  It  was 
currently  believed,  in  the  "  Democratic"  ranks  at  the  North,  that  Pierce  and 
Douglass  had  been  thrown  overboard  for  their  rampant  pro-Slaveryism,  and  that 
Buchanan  would  pursue  a  different  policy. 

As  these  well-known  facts  would  naturally  tend  to  moderate  the  pro-Slaveryism 
of  the  "  Democratic"  party  when  successful,  so  the  known  fact  that  the  "  Repub- 
lican" party  had  lowered  its  tone  before  the  election,  would  have  naturally  tended 
to  prevent  it  from  taking  a  higher  stand  afterwards,  hi  case  it  -had  succeeded  at 
the  election. 

*  It  has  been  suggested  to  the  writer  that  this  danger  might  be  averted  by  in- 
serting in  the  act  of  admission,  a  clause  providing  that  if  the  State  should  after- 
wards establish  slavery,  it  should  cease  to  be  any  longer  a  member  of  the  Federal 
Union.  The  answer  is,  that  neither  the  "Democratic"  or  the  " Republican"  ideas 
of  the  Constitution,  admit  of  any  such  proviso,  or  would  vindicate  its  binding 
force.  The  "  Democrats"  deny  the  constitutionality  of  the  Missouri  restriction,  and  of 
the  ordinance  of  It 8 7  for  the  North- Western  Territory.  Of  course  they  would  deny 
the  constitutionality  of  this  proposed  proviso.  The  "  Republicans"  maintain  the 
validity  of  the  restriction  for  Territories,  but  do  not  dare  to  say  that  it  can  be  en- 


on  the  Republican  Platform  f  59 

Would  a  Republican  administration  protect  the  "  Free  State  " 
men  in  Kansas  by  securing  them  a  chance  to  vote  ?  And  by  pro- 
tecting them  against  the  "  Border  Ruffians"  ?  Suppose  they 
should  do  this,  and  after  all,  the  "  Free  State  "  men  should  be  out- 
numbered ?  Then,  again,  they  would  come  under  the  Slave  Code, 
and  the  Republican  administration,  on  its  own  theories,  could  not 
protect  them,  after  they  were  once  admitted  as  a  State. 

But  if  the  "  Free  State "  men,  being  thus  protected,  should 
prove  to  be  a  majority,  then,  white  remaining  a  majority,  they 
would  no  longer  need  Federal  protection.  Whenever  they  should 
become  a  minority  they  would  come  under  the  Slavery  oligarchy, 
and  a  "Republican"  administration,  on  its  theory  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, could  not  help  them.  But  it  is  minorities  rather  than  ma- 
jorities— the  weak,  rather  than  the  strong,  that  need  the  National 
protection.  A  National  Government  that  can  only  protect  major- 
ities^ could  seldom  or  never  be  of  any  benefit  to  Freedom,  either 
in  the  States  or  Territories.  If  a  despotic  majority,  in  a  State  or 
Territory,  must  alone  enjoy  National  protection,  then  a  National 
Government  becomes  a  despot,  instead  of  a  protector.* 

forced  upon  States.  The  broad  distinction  they  make  between  States  and  Territo- 
ries forbids  them  to  say  so.  Missouri  was  admitted  on  a  condition  which  has  been 
violated,  but  no  "  Republican"  moves  for  its  ejectment  from  the  Union.  "  Repub- 
licans" do  not  hold  that  the  Constitution  gives  Congress  any  power  over  slavery 
in  the  States,  and  if  the  Constitution  does  not,  no  act  of  Congress,  under  the  Con- 
stitution could  do  so.  The  acceptance  of  the  condition  by  the  new  State  would 
not  give  it  validity,  if  the  condition  itself  were  unconstitutional. 

And  besides,  the  "Republican"  theory,  equally  at  least  with  the  "Democratic," 
admits  of  no  Federal  power  to  enforce  upon  the  States  a  compliance  with  their  po- 
litical compacts.  On  this  ground,  "  Republicans"  have  maintained  thai  although 
(as  they  say)  the  States  are  constitutionally  bound  to  return  fugitive  slaves,  yet  the 
Federal  Government  has  no  power  to  enforce  it.  If  then,  the  compact  of  a  State, 
contained  in  its  ratification  of  the  Constitution,  gives  Congress  no  power  to  enforce 
its  observance,  how  could  Congress  enforce  the  observance  of  a  compact  not  con- 
tained in  the  Constitution  nor  contemplated  by  it  ? 

Finally,  the  Constitution  itself,  as  it  stands,  contains  prohibitions  of  slavery  in  the 
States,  and  contains  provisions  for  Federal  action  against  it,  altogether  more  availa- 
ble than  any  that  could  be  incorporated  in  such  a  proviso,  to  an  act  admittimg  a 
new  State,  for  it  says:  "No  State  shall  pass  any  bill  of  attainder,  or  ex  post  facto 
law,  or  law  impairing  the  obligations  of  contracts,  or  grant  any  title  of  nobility." 
i(  No  person  shall  be  deprived  of  liberty  without  due  process  of  law."  And  "  the 
United  States  shall  guaranty  to  every  State  in  this  Union,  a  republican  form  of 
government."  If  these  Constitutional  provisions  do  not  enable  Congress  to  put 
down  slavery  in  a  State,  assuredly  no  act  .of  Congress,  outside  of  the  Constitution 
could  do  it.  So  that  "  Republicans"  would  have  to  go  outside  of  their  own  theories 
in  order  to  secure  any  new  State  against  slavery. 

*  In  all  the  preceding  argument,  and  hi  what  follows,  we  do  not  deny  the  possi- 
ble admission  of  Kansas  as  a  free  State,  either  under  Fremont  or  Buchanan.  Nor 


60  What  would  have  been  gained  by  a  Victory 

Again.  It  is  evident  that  if  the  National  Government,  under  a 
Republican  administration,  did  not,  by  legislation,  or  by  Execu- 
tive interference,  exclude  Slavery  from  Kansas,  then  the  very  best 
it  could  possibly  do,  would  be  to  keep  an  even  balance  on  the 
maxim  of  "hands  off,"  and  let  the  settlers,  as  Mr.  Banks  proposes, 
settle  the  question  among  themselves.  With  this  might  possibly 
be  connected  the  function  of  supervision  as  well  as  protection,  the 
administration  providing  umpires  to  determine  who  may  and  who 
may  not  vote.  No  mere  paper  enactment,  prescribing  the  quali- 
fications of  voters,  would  answer  the  purpose.  There  must  be 
well-armed  and  trusty  functionaries,  at  every  voting  rendezvous, 
on  election-day,  to  execute  the  enactment,  or  the  executive  order. 
And  these  functionaries  must  determine,  in  the  case  of  each  one 
whose  vote  may  be  challenged,  whether  he  is  or  is  not  entitled  to 
vote.  In  the  absence  of  this,  the  voting  would,  very  probably,  be 
determined  by  the  contending  force  of  armed  voters,  or  the  settlers 
would  be  liable  to  be  driven  away,  as  before. 

[If  you  say  the  Federal  administration  could  abdicate  its  con- 
trol over  the  Territory,  and  leave  the  free  settlers  to  take  care  of 
themselves,  then  you  go  back  to  "Squatter  Sovereignty"  with  a 
vengeance,  and  claim  the  credit  of  delivering  Kansas,  by  doing 
nothing  at  all.] 

But  how  could  an  adequate  and  impartial  statute  or  order  be 
shaped  ?  Impartial  between  Slavery  and  Freedom  ?  And  how, 
or  by  whom,  could  it  be  impartially  and  successfully  executed — 
yet  so  as  to  secure  freedom — or  even  an  equal  chance  for  freedom  ? 
The  proximity  of  Missouri  would  enable  her  inhabitants  to  deter- 
mine the  question,  if  a  short  residence  entitles  to  the  franchise  ? 
If  the  term  be  extended,  the  annoying  presence  of  the  ruffians  is 
prolonged,  and  the  time  extended  for  their  assembling. 

The  Missourian  claims  to  have  come  as  a  settler.  The  Free 
State  man  does  the  same.  If  the  one  be  received,  so  must  the 
other.  If  the  one  be  excluded,  so  must  the  other.  In  any  con- 
do  we  say  that  there  was  no  difference  between  them.  Kansas  may  come  in,  a 
free  State,  as  the  Democrats  and  as  N.  P.  Banks  predicted,  "without  any  action  of 
Congress.'1''  It  may  come  in,  by  the  preponderance  of  free  settlers,  and  their  supe- 
rior industry  and  enterprise.  Our  argument  only  goes  to  show  the  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  a  Congressional  and  Executive  guaranty  of  freedom  in  Kansas,  accord- 
ing to  the  Republican  platform,  which  denies  Federal  authority  over  slavery  in  the 
States.  None  of  these  difficulties  could,  for  one  moment,  embarrass  an  administra- 
tion of  "Radical  Abolitionists,"  who  all  understand  that  the  National  Government, 
like  all  other  civil  governments,  is  bound  to  protect  personal  liberty,  and  that  no 
civil  government  (State,  National,  or  Territorial)  can  have  any  right  to  maintain 
or  to  tolerate  slaveholding. 


on  the  Republican  Platform  f  61 

ceivable  case,  the  issue  becomes  a  game  of  fraud  or  chance,  or  a 
struggle  of  journeyings  and  of  physical  endurance.  The  possible 
success  of  liberty  only  remains.  The  protection  of  a  "  Republi- 
can" administration  ends  here.  It  can  not  exclude  Slavery  from 
the  Territory,  an  embryo  State,  because  it  can  not  prohibit  Slav- 
ery in  a  State  at  maturity. 

There  is  a  further  difficulty  in  the  case.  If  the  Republican 
administration  gives  up  (as  does  Mr.  Banks)  the  idea  of  a  Fede- 
ral exclusion  of  Slavery  from  the  Territory,  while  remaining  a  Ter- 
ritory, and  while  it  is  forming  itself  into  a  State,  then  the  Repub- 
lican administration,  impliedly  and  virtually  admits  Slavery  into 
the  Territory  during  the  same  period.  It  must  either  exclude,  or 
it  must  admit  slaveholders  with  their  slaves.  No  imaginary  or 
attempted  neutrality  can  help  this.  If  it  excludes  them,  then  the ' 
Republican  administration  decides  the  case  against  Slavery,  and 
the  plan  of  Mr.  Banks  is  abandoned.  The  slaveholder  is  then  ex- 
cluded. How  then,  or  to  what  purpose,  can  he  be  allowed  to 
vote  ? 

But,  if  the  administration  admits  slaveholders  with  their  slaves, 
then  the  administration  decides  in  favor  of  Slavery,  and  casts  a 
strong  if  not  a  controlling  influence  against  freedom.  A  Republi- 
can administration,  like  every  other  administration,  including  that 
of  Mr.  Pierce,  would  have  to  do  one  thing  or  the  other.  It  must 
either  exclude  or  admit  slaveholders  with  their  slaves.  In  ad- 
mitting them,  the  Cincinnati  Democratic  platform,  as  expounded 
by  Mr.  Ritchie,  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  becomes,  in  practice, 
the  rule.  The  national  administration  (whether  called  Demo- 
cratic or  Republican,  whether  under  Buchanan  or  Fremont)  pro- 
tects the  right  of  slaveholders  to  slave  "  property "  in  the  Terri- 
tory, unless  it  excludes  such  property.  If  protected  in  the  Terri- 
tory, it  must  be  protected  when  the  Territory  becomes  a  State, 
or  else  the  previous  Federal  protection  becomes  a  deceptive  lure. 
The  slaveholder  brought  his  "property"  with  him,  under  as- 
surance of  Federal  protection;  but  if  the  State  inaugurated  under 
such  Federal  supervision,  can  "rob  him  of  his  property"  by  its 
first  act,  as  a  State,  the  previous  promise  of  Federal  protection 
was  a  sham. 

An  administration  that  could  recognize  "  property  in  man  "  any- 
where,  would  find  an  almost  insuperable  difficulty,  here,  however 
averse  to  establishing  Slavery  in  a  free  State.  But  how  else  could 
the  "national  faith"  be  kept  sacred?  and  the  "honor"  of  the  ad- 
ministration be  redeemed  ?  How  shall  they  dispose  of  the  dilemma? 
A  little  paltering,  here,  and  a  few  missing  votes,  and  the  very  last 


62  What  would  have  been  gained  by  a  Victory 

screw  of  the  Cincinnati  platform  is  effectually  turned.  Kansas 
becomes  the  first  example  of  a  State,  with  a  Constitution,  it  may 
be,  or  a  statute,  excluding  Slavery,  in  which  slave-property  is 
nevertheless  protected  by  the  Federal  arm.  And  all  has  been 
done  so  naturally  and  quietly  that  nobody  who  recognizes  the 
legality  of  Slavery,  anywhere,  could  very  readily  put  his  finger 
upon  the  fatal  link  of  the  chain.  Is  it  quite  certain  that  the  "  Re- 
publican" platform,  as  Mr.  Banks  constructs  it,  and  as  the  "TRI- 
BUNE" and  the  "  TIMES  "gave  it  unquestioned  favor,  would  keep 
their  feet  out  of  the  trap  ?  If  "  the  first  purpose"  of  the  Republi- 
can President,  (as  the  "  TIMES  "  says,)  would  have  been  "  so  to 
conduct  his  administration,  as  to  conciliate  the  Southern  party  in 
Congress,"  could  he  have  begun  by  excluding  Slavery  and  slaves 
from  Kansas  ?  Failing  to  do  this,  could  his  administration  have 
secured  liberty  for  Kansas,  as  the  majority  of  his  supporters  have 
intended  by  their  votes  ?  The  question  is  not  concerning  his  pre- 
ferences, his  intentions,  or  his  determinations — but  simply  whether, 
with  the  platform  of  principles  adopted  by  himself  and  his  party, 
and  as  already  modified  by  them,  he  could  have  given  those  deter- 
minations effect  ?  All  men,  and  most  of  all,  public  functionaries, 
find  their  wishes  controlled  by  the  prevailing  IDEAS  identified 
with  their  history,  their  position,  and  their  associates.  We  may 
give  full  credit  to  Col.  Fremont  for  all  the  excellent  qualities  that 
his  most  admiring  friends  attribute  to  him,  and  yet  question  his 
ability  to  overcome  obstacles  like  these.  Can  a  man  receive  fire  into 
his  bosom,  and  not  be  burned  ?  Then  may  a  President  admit  the 
legality  of  Slavery,  and  yet  maintain  freedom.  It  is  hardly  to  be 
expected  of  a  President  that  he  should  go  beyond  or  against  the 
platform  and  the  party  to  which  he  owed  his  election,  and  to 
which  he  is  still  indebted  for  support.  When  James  Buchanan  an- 
nounced himself  to  be  no  longer  himself  but  the  platform  of  his 
party,  he  was  singular  only  in  giving  expression  to  a  sentiment 
commonly  concealed,  even  from  themselves,  by  aspirants  to  high  , 
stations. 

Connected,  closely,  with  this  last  view,  is  another,  which  de- 
mands attention.  The  administration  of  President  Pierce  has  in- 
curred the  just  reprobation  of  the  civilized  world,  (his  own  inter- 
ested and  prejudiced  partisans  excepted,)  for  the  aid  and  comfort 
he  has  extended  to  the  Ruffian  Invaders  of  Kansas.  And  yet,  the 
proper  grounds  of  this  condemnation  are  not,  perhaps,  as  well 
settled,  at  least  in  this  country,  as  the  importance  of  the  subject 
demands.  The  theory  of  the  Constitution  commonly  current  in  this 
country,  places  the  National  Government  in  the  position  of  an  im- 


on  the  Republican  Platform  f  63 

partial  and  equal  protector  of  SLAVERY  and  of  FREEDOM  !  The 
irreconcilable  antagonism  between  the  two  functions  is  almost 
universally  overlooked !  It  is  taken  for  granted  that  a  Federal 
administration  is  bound  and  is  able  to  keep  an  even  balance  be- 
tween them!  It  never  occurs  to  most  minds  that  the  function 
of  protecting  men's  liberties  includes,  of  necessity,  the  function 
of  eradicating  tyranny,  and  of  casting  down  tyrants.  Still  less 
do  they  dream  that  immunity  and  toleration  to  tyrants,  on  the 
part  of  the  Government,  necessitates  the  protection  and  aid  of 
them  in  their  tyranny.  When  it  was  found  that  the  Federal  forces 
were  employed  to  drive  out  the  free  settlers  of  Kansas,  or  to  ob- 
struct the  proper  exercise  of  their  freedom — and  that  those  forces 
were  swelled  by  accessions  from  the  lawless  and  murderous  ban- 
ditti of  invading  slaveholders,  the  whole  country,  north  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line  (with  the  exception  already  noticed)  stood  aghast 
at  the  exhibition.  But  very  few  seemed  to  have  understood  that, 
under  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  and  considering  the  pressure 
coming  upon  the  President  from  opposite  quarters,  the  exhibition 
was  one  of  the  most  natural  and  inevitable  that  could  have  been 
imagined — that  an  administration  not  pledged  to  protect  Liberty 
in  Kansas,  was,  of  necessity,  pledge^,  virtually,  to  uproot  Liberty 
in  Kansas !  The  crime  imputed  to  the  administration  was  merely 
that  it  failed  to  protect  the  "  free  State"  men,  and,  instead  of  this, 
took  the  part  of  the  aggressors,  against  them.  Further  than  this, 
the  censure  has  not  gone.  £To  voice  of  astonishment  or  of  indigna- 
\ ion  has  been  raised  against  the  administration  because  it  did  not 
at  once  proclaim  Freedom  in  Kansas,  and  put  down,  with  a  strong 
hand,  all  attempts  to  plant  Slavery  upon  the  ruins  of  freedom. 
Such  a  course,  from  the  existing  administration,  might  have  eli- 
cited expressions  of  alarm,  even  from  Republicans,  Free  Soilers, 
and  perhaps  from  some  Abolitionists,  lest  the  Government  should 
have  been  overstepping  its  Constitutional  boundaries,  becoming 
"  consolidated,"  or  invading  the  rights  of  the  Territory,  or  of  the 
neighboring  States!  So  little  did  men  understand  that  there 
were  only  two  ways  for  the  administration  of  Mr.  Pierce,  or  of  any 
other  President  (whether  Whig,  Democrat,  or  Republican) — no 
other  alternative  for  selection,  to  wit,  either  the  protection  of 
Freedom  against  Slavery,  or  else  the  protection  of  Slavery  against 
Freedom — the  driving  out  or  "  crushing  out"  of  free  settlers,  or  a 
similar  visitation  upon  the  invaders.  It  was  not  seen  that  if  Pre- 
sident Pierce  were  not  prepared  for  the  latter,  he  had  no  choice 
left  him  but  to  yield  his  assent  to  the  former.  Up  to  the  present 
moment,  the  multitudes  who  so  justly  condemn  President 


64  "What  would  have  been  gained  by  a  Victory 

Pierce,  do  not  see  this.     They  imagine  that  he  might  have  found 
some  middle  course  between  such  extremes.     They  will  tell  you 
that  Slavery  and  Freedom  have  lived  together,  under  our  Na- 
tional Government,  thus  far,  without  involving  any  administration 
in  their  quarrels.     They  forget  that  Slavery  has  uniformly  gov- 
erned hitherto,  and  that  there  has  been  peace — falsely  so  called — 
only  because  Liberty  has  slept,  dormant.     They  forget  that  the 
case  has  now  changed,  because  Liberty  has  begun  to  resist,  be- 
cause issues,  long  delayed,  have  now  come  up  for  decision,  because 
the  death-struggle  has  already  commenced,  and  because  the  de- 
mands of  Slavery  upon  the  National  Government,  which  it  has  so 
long  controlled,  have,  of  necessity,  become   so  exorbitant,  that 
any  administration  must  either  resist  it  all,  or  enforce  it  all — must 
either  wage  an  exterminating  war  with  Slavery  or  with  Freedom 
— not  merely  in  Kansas,  but  in  the  entire  country.     Under  tem- 
porary pressures,  there  may,  indeed,  be  temporary  reactions,  tem- 
porary relaxations,  and  temporary  respites.     The  struggle  must 
nevertheless  go  on,  until  either  Freedom  or  Slavery  is  vanquished. 
The  Nation  will  soon  be  driven  to  see  all  this.     The  question 
now  is,  whether  the  Republican  party,  its  leaders,  and  its  Presi- 
dential candidate,  already  see  this.     If  they  do,  they  are  prepared 
to  meet  the  crisis  like  freemen.    Then,  but  not  otherwise,  would  they 
have  been  able  to  fill  their  places,  and  meet  the  crisis,  if  the  Presi- 
dential election  had  resulted  in  their  favor.     Then,  but  not  other- 
wise, would  "Freedom  in  Kansas,"  and  in  the  whole  country, 
have  been  secure  in  their  keeping.     To  have  come  into  power 
under  the  control  of  any  less  comprehensive  IDEA,  would  well- 
nigh  have  insured  disappointment  and  disgrace. 

And  this  view  prepares  us  to  look  at  one  remaining  particular, 
in  the  process  of  liberating  Kansas.  It  has  been  said,  and  well 
said,  that  one  of  the  first  steps  to  be  taken  by  the  National  Govern- 
ment for  the  relief  of  "  Free  State"  men  in  Kansas,  must  be  the 
repudiation  of  the  Slave  Code  imposed  upon  them  by  the  Border 
Ruffian  Legislature  of  the  Territory.  For  "  Free  State"  men  to 
wield  the  suffrage  under  the  required  oath  to  submit  to  that  Code, 
would  be  to  give  up  themselves  and  their  Territory,  as  its  victims. 
The  Federal  abolition  of  the  existing  Slavery  in  Kansas,  then, 
is  confessedly  among  the  first  steps  to  be  taken. 

And  this  settles  the  question  of  Federal  authority  over  Slavery 
in  the  Territories.  It  settles  also  the  propriety  and  the  necessity 
of  the  measure  in  respect  to  Kansas. 

But  this  upsets  the  expositions  of  Mr.  Banks.  "  Legislation  in 
Congress,"  and  consequent  "agitation"  there,  would  have  been 


on  the  Republican  Platform  f  65 

needed,  unless  the  still  bolder  measure  of  Executive  interference, 
without  legislation,  should  have  taken  its  place.  The  IDEA  of 
Federal  interference  with  Slavery  would  have  had  to  be  restored 
by  Col.  Fremont  and  his  advisers,  or  else,  confessedly,  they  could 
have  done  nothing  for  Kansas.  But  how  could  this  have  been 
done,  if,  as  the  Times  says,  "  his  first  purpose  would  be  so  to  con- 
duct his  administration  as  to  conciliate  the  Southern  party  in  Con- 
gress" ?  Which  of  the  two  incompatible  things  would  have  been 
preferred  ? 

Still  farther.  The  power  and  duty  of  the  Federal  Government 
to  put  down  the  existing  Slavery  in  Kansas,  involves  the  power 
and  duty  of  the  same  Government  to  do  the  same  thing  in  other 
Territories,  and  in  the  States.  This  will  be  doubted.  It  will  be 
said  that  the  reason  why  the  Federal  Government  has  just  author- 
ity to  put  down  Slavery  in  Kansas,  is  because  the  Slave  Code  there 
was  established,  contrary  to  the  Constitution,  by  invasion,  by  law- 
less violence,  without  the  consent  of  the  people  upon  whom  it  was 
imposed.  But  this  is  no  more  true  of  the  Slavery  in  Kansas  than 
it  is  of  all  the  Slavery  that  exists  in  the  States.  The  slave-traders 
invaded  Africa  and  hunted  down  their  victims.  Their  slaves  were 
sold  in  the  Colonies,  not  only  without  law,  but  in  violation  of  law. 
To  the  present  hour  there  is  no  positive  law  for  Slavery  in  any  one 
of  the  States.  And  if  Slavery  be  unconstitutional  in  the  Territo- 
ries, it  is  equally  so  in  the  States.  The  reason  given  for  Federal 
authority  over  Slavery  in  Kansas,  is  therefore  an  equal  reason  for 
its  authority  over  Slavery  in  the  States. 

The  claim  of  Federal  authority  to  set  aside  the  Slave  Code  of 
Kansas  assumes  the  right  of  the  Federal  Government  to  decide 
whether  its  slavery  was  introduced  lawfully  or  no.  And  if  it  may 
inquire  into  the  lawfulness  and  Constitutionality  in  Kansas,  it  may 
institute  the  same  inquiry  in  respect  to  the  States.  If  it  may  de- 
cide in  the  one  case,  it  may  decide  in  the  other. 

If  it  be  still  imagined  that  there  is  a  broad  distinction  between 
the  Territories  and  the  States  in  this  matter,  let  it  be  remembered 
that  the  Slavery  party  will  admit  no  such  distinction.  It  insists 
that  the  two  cases  are  parallel.  The  Slavery  party  has  exercised 
its  prerogative  of  defining  its  own  claim.  At  this  we  do  not  de- 
mur. Nor  can  it  complain  that  its  opponents  deal  with  the  pre- 
cise claim  thus  presented  to  them — with  that  claim,  and  with  no- 
thing different  from  it. 

The  claim  we  have  seen  to  be,  the  right  of  property  in  man, 
under  natural,  NOT  municipal  law — the  right  everywhere,  and  at 
all  times,  in  the  Territories,  in  the  old  States  and  in  the  new — the 
5 


66  What  would  have  been  gained  by  a  Victory  f 

right  of  Federal  protection  of  slave  property,  wherever  it  may  be 
carried,  within  the  country,  in  despite  of  State  laws.  The  claim  is 
to  be  met,  as  presented,  or  it  is  not  met  at  all. 

But  it  must  be  met  and  disposed  of,  in  some  way.  It  must  be 
resisted,  or  submitted  to.  The  claim  is  pressed,  and  must  be  dis- 
posed of,  one  way  or  the  other.  It  can  not  be  halved.  It  can  not 
be  compromised. 

Now  what  will  the  Republican  party  do  with  this  claim  ?  They 
must  take  it  just  as  it  stands.  They  must  concede  the  whole,  or 
they  must  resist  the  whole.  The  same  necessity,  were  they  in 
power,  would  rest  on  tfiem,  that  has  rested  on  the  administration 
of  Mr.  Pierce.  They  must  help  drive  Liberty  out  of  Kansas,  or 
they  must  help  drive  Slavery  out  of  Kansas.  Which  will  they  do? 
And  their  decision,  either  way,  will  of  necessity  involve  their 
similar  decision  in  respect  to  Slavery  in  the  States.  If  they  decide 
it  in  the  one  direction,  they  give  up  Kansas  to  Slavery,  and  re- 
linquish the  enterprise  of  "  non-extension,"  of  "  localizing"  and  of 
"  limiting"  Slavery,  in  any  degree,  or  in  any  form.  If  they  decide 
it  in  the  other  direction,  they  decide  upon  the  Federal  abolition  of 
Slavery  in  all  the  States,  or,  what  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  the 
protection  from  chattelhood,  of  every  human  being  within  the 
United  States  and  its  possessions. 

To  that  issue  every  political  party  in  this  country  must  be  driv- 
en, and  on  that  issue  its  decision  must  be  made,  and  its  platform 


The  party  now  in  power  was,  by  the  fact  of  its  being  in  power, 
compelled  to  define  its  position,  on  that  issue.  It  has  done  so. 
And  any  other  party  coming  into  power  will  have  to  do  the  same. 

Was  the  Republican  party,  at  the  time  of  the  election  in  No- 
vember, prepared  for  that  issue !  And  was  it  ready  to  define  its 
position  in  favor  of  THE  NATION'S  FREEDOM  ?  If  so,  it  was  pre- 
pared to  come  into  power,  and  to  wield  its  power  with  honor.  If 
not,  its  defeat  may  have  been  a  providential  and  merciful  chastise- 
ment, to  teach  it  wisdom.  It  might  have  been  a  worse  defeat,  to 
have  come  into  power  under  the  incumbrance  of  disclaimers,  con- 
cessions, and  pledges,  incompatible  with  the  attainment  of  a  single 
one  of  its  objects. 

We  shall  not  be  understood  as  saying  that  no  difference  of  object 
or  of  purpose  between  the  Democratic  and  the  Republican  parties 
is  to  be  recognized,  nor  as  affirming  that,  under  conceivable  cir- 
cumstances, and  through  the  good  providence  of  God,  the  Re- 
publican party,  had  it  succeeded  in  the  late  election,  might  not 
have  been  instrumental  in  placing  the  country  in  a  better  condition 


The  True  Course.  67 

than  it  now  is,  or  is  likely  to  be  soon.  All  this  lies  beyond  our 
vision.  We  are  looking  at  probable  operations  of  cause  and  effect, 
upon  a  party  unfortunately  trammelled  with  such  a  platform,  and 
holding  such  IDEAS  of  the  Constitution.  We  have  deemed  it  de- 
sirable to  look  critically  at  the  almost  insuperable  difficulties  that 
must  have  interposed  between  its  purposes  and  the  accomplishment 
of  them.  And  we  have  done  this  for  the  purpose  of  entreating  its 
leaders  and  members,  if  they  mean  to  remain  in  the  field,  as  an 
organized  party,  to  remove  such  needless  incumbrances  from  tneir 
shoulders,  and  take  up  such  formidable  stumbling-blocks  from  the 
path  of  their  future  usefulness.  The  cause  of  human  liberty  can 
not  afford  to  have  the  field  they  occupy  lumbered  up  in  this  man- 
ner. They  must  clear  it  up,  or  give  the  room  for  others. 


THE  TRUE  COURSE. 

And  now,  having  thus  freely  remarked  upon  tlie  platforms  and 
the  policy  of  the  Democratic  and  the  Republican  parties,  we  may 
be  asked  what  we  would  substitute  instead. 

The  answer  is  easy.  We  would  have  a  party  declaring  the 
power  and  duty  of  Congress  to  abolish  Slavery  in  the  States ;  a 
party  against  Slavery  where  it  already  exists,  as  well  as  against 
the  further  extension  of  Slavery.  We  would  have  the  oppo- 
sition to  the  Slave  Power  based  upon  principle,  and  because  slave- 
holding  everywhere,  is  a  crime  that  can  not  be  legalized,  instead 
of  its  being  based  upon  policy,  and  because  the  extension  of 
Slavery,  in  certain  directions,  is  opposed  to  the  interests  of  the 
"  whites"  of  the  Northern  States  !  We  would  as  distinctly  affirm 
the  unconstitutionality  of  Slavery  in  Missouri  and  in  South-Caro- 
lina, as  in  Kansas  and  Nebraska.  We  would  as  promptly  and  as 
earnestly  demand  the  Federal  protection  of  black  men  in  the  slave 
States  as  the  protection  of  white  men  in  the  free  Territories.  We 
would  affirm  the  same  Constitutional  right  and  duty  of  the  Federal 
Government  to  act  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  We  would 
give  precedence  to  Federal  action  against  Slavery  in  the  States,  not 
only  as  being  of  greatest  importance,  but  as  coming  first  in  the 
order  of  Nature,  and  first  in  point  of  time,  and  feasibility  of  ac- 
complishment. By  a  prompt  and  speedy  abolition  of  Slavery  in 
the  States,  we  would  secure  the  Territories  against  the  possibility 
of  its  encroachments,  instead  of  wasting  our  strength  in  absurd 
and  visionary  schemes  for  preventing  its  extension,  while  conced- 
ing its  Constitutional  right  to  existence. 


68  The  True  Course. 

In  doing  this,  we  should  have  the  satisfaction  of  striking,  direct- 
ly, at  the  root  of  the  evil,  instead  of  aiming  random  shafts  at  the 
branches ;  of  laboring  for  our  whole  country,  not  for  a  particular 
section  of  it ;  for  all  the  inhabitants,  not  for  a  select  class  of  them. 

In  this,  we  should  be  fortified  by  the  principles  of  impartial 
justice,  and  approved  by  the  civilized  world.  We  should  be  in 
harmony  with  nature,  which  teaches  liberty ;  with  the  Scriptures, 
which  condemn  oppression ;  with  the  spirit  of  our  fathers,  who 
bled  for  freedom ;  with  the  genius  of  the  age,  which  demands 
progress;  with  the  literature  of  all  nations,  which  is  against 
slavery ;  with  the  first  principles  of  government  and  law,  which 
protect  the  equal  rights  of  all  men ;  with  the  divine  purpose  of 
human  redemption,  which  includes  all  the  families  of  the  earth  in 
its  promised  blessings. 

In  the  prosecution  of  such  a  work,  we  should  but  be  giving 
practical  effect  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  to  the 
declared  objects  of  the  Constitution,  conforming  to  the  strict 
letter  of  its  provisions,  in  obedience  to  its  living  spirit. 

By  the  simple  process  of  understanding  the  Constitution  as  it 
reads,  by  expounding  it  according  to  established  legal  rules,  by 
giving  to  it  the  same  construction  in  one  latitude  that  we  do  in 
another,  and  by  claiming  for  all  "  the  people  of  the  United  States," 
alike,  the  benefits  of  its  provisions,  we  should  avoid  the  inconsist- 
ency of  seeking  to  make  it  the  aegis  of  liberty  in  one  part  of  the 
nation,  while  consenting  that  it  may  be  made  the  shield  of  slavery 
in  another  part ;  the  inconsistency  of  maintaming  that,  while  the 
Constitution  secures  the  liberty  of  white  men,  and  owners  of  plant- 
ations, it  affords  no  equal  protection  to  black  men  and  laborers 
upon  plantations.  Nor  should  we  be  betrayed  into  the  absurdity 
of  holding  that  the  "  people  of  the  United  States,"  by  whom  the 
Constitution  was  "  ordained  and  established,"  are  entitled  to  none 
of  its  safeguards  of  personal  freedom,  while,  in  the  same  breath, 
we  were  loudly  claiming  the  protection  of  those  same  beneficent 
provisions  for  the  people  of  new  Territories,  beyond  our  original 
boundaries,  and  which  have  recently  come  into  existence. 

In  laboring  to  persuade  our  fellow-citizens  to  occupy  with  us, 
this  firm  platform,  our  chief  task  must  be  to  convince  them  that 
political  acts  are  moral  acts,  that  the  moral  world,  (including  the 
political  world,)  like  the  natural  world,  is  governed  by  fixed  laws, 
established  by  the  Author  of  nature,  laws  from  which  He  himself, 
in  his  righteous  Providence,  never  swerves,  laws  from  which  He 
never  permits  individuals  or  communities  to  depart,  without  in- 
curring the  just  penalties  of  transgression. 


Principles  of  Government.  69 


PRINCIPLES    or    GOVERNMENT. 

And  among  all  these  divine  laws,  there  are  none  more  universal 
and  inexorable  than  that  which  binds  Civil  Society  to  protect  the 
natural  rights,  the  personal  liberties,  of  each  one  of  its  unoffending 
subjects.  By  this  law,  God  requires,  and  always  has  required  of  all 
nations,  in  all  ages,  and  whatever  may  be  their  recognized  forms  and 
modes  of  Civil  Government,  that  every  man  shall  be  restrained  from 
violating  the  natural  rights  of  every  other  man.  It  is  upon  this 
divine  law  that  all  civil  law  is  founded,  and  it  is  from  the  same 
divine  law  that  all  civil  governments  derive  their  right  and  author- 
ity to  govern.  No  human  compacts,  constitutions,  statutes,  or 
usages  can  supersede,  nor  modify,  in  the  slightest  degree,  this 
divine  law,  which  is  the  law  of  equity  and  justice,  and  must  remain 
in  force  so  long  as  human  beings  live  together  in  society,  and  re- 
main moral,  accountable  beings,  as  they  now  are.  It  is  the  Law 
of  Love,  affirmed  in  the  Scriptures,  as  applied  to  the  relations  and 
responsibilities  of  communities  and  nations  of  men. 

Civil  Government,  however  organized,  is  the  instrument  of 
society,  or  of  nations,  for  the  exercise  of  this  high  function — the 
equal  and  impartial  "  protection  of  the  natural  rights  of  all  men, 
taking  none  of  them  from  them."*  In  Scripture  language  it  is  to 
"  execute  justice  between  a  man  and  his  neighbor" — "  to  deliver 
him  that  is  spoiled  out  of  the  hands  of  the  oppressor."  This  is  the 
mission  of  Civil  Government.  This  is  the  object,  and  this  is  the  de- 
finition of  civil  law.  All  the  great  writers  on  Civil  Government, 
from  Moses  and  Justinian,  down  to  Blackstone  and  Jefferson,  have 
been  occupied  with  statements  of  these  elementary  truths,  which 
lie  at  the  basis  of  all  jurisprudence,  of  all  legislation,  of  all  that  can 
properly  be  called  the  Science  of  Government,  the  Science  of  Poli- 
tics, the  Science  of  Law.  The  statesman  or  the  jurist,  the  politician 
or  the  civilian,  who  ignores  or  tramples  upon  these  principles,  or 
who  allows  himself,  under  any  exigencies,  to  depart  from  them,  or  to 
hold  them  in  abeyance,  in  practice,  is  either  too  ignorant  or  too 
dishonest  to  be  intrusted  with  the  rights  and  interests  of  his  fel- 
lows, by  holding  public  stations.  Whoever  "  for  reasons  of  state" 
violates  justice,  or  permits  its  violation,  has  no  claim  to  the  name 
of  a  statesman,  and  can  do  nothing  for  the  State  but  to  corrupt  and 
destroy  it. 
Our  fathers  understood  these  principles,  and  therefore,  in  form- 

*  Jefferson. 


70  National  Responsibilities. 

ing  their  national  Constitution,  (as  Mr.  Madison  testifies,)  they 
would  not  permit  it  to  contain  language  which  could  be  construed 
to  imply  that  man  can  hold  property  in  man — that  Slavery  can,  by 
any  possibility,  be  made  legal.  The  previous  National  Declaration 
that  the  right  to  liberty  is  inalienable,  amounts  to  the  same  thing. 
For  the  right  to  liberty  would  not  be  inalienable,  if  Civil  Govern- 
ment could  legalize  Slavery,  or  lawfully  tolerate  such  a  practice. 
To  admit  that  Slavery  can  be  made  legal,  would  be  to  admit  that 
lawlessness  may  become  law,  and  that  Civil  Government  can,  law- 
fully, become  an  oppressor  instead  of  a  protector.  To  say  this, 
would  be  to  contradict  and  deny  the  first  principles  of  the  Science 
of  Government,  and  the  Science  of  Law.  Politics  is  the  Science 
of  Government,  of  legislation,  of  law.  So  that  the  pretended 
politician  is  a  quack,  or  an  impostor,  who  believes  that  there  can 
be  valid  law  for  Slavery,  or  who,  from  considerations  of  policy, 
allows  himself  to  admit  its  legality.  To  clothe  such  a  person  with 
civil  office,  would  be  as  great  an  absurdity  as  to  make  a  man  an 
engineer  of  a  locomotive,  who  knew  nothing  of  the  rules  of  his 
profession,  or  who  could  be  bribed  to  violate  them. 


NATIONAL  RESPONSIBILITIES. 

Wherever  a  national  existence  is  to  be  recognized,  there  is  to  be 
recognized  likewise,  a  corresponding  national  responsibility,  and 
this  responsibility  must  always,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  in- 
volve the  national  duty  of  securing  the  natural  right  to  liberty,  of 
each  and  every  one  of  its  innocent  inhabitants.  Throughout  the 
Scriptures,  God  is  represented  as  holding  nations,  as  such,  along 
with  their  rulers,  responsible  for  all  the  oppression,  violence,  in- 
equality, and  injustice  which  the  nation  or  its  government  either 
perpetrates  or  tolerates  within  its  borders.  Even  under  the 
despotic  governments  of  Egypt,  Tyre,  and  Assyria,  God  held  the 
people  responsible  for  the  oppressions  committed  or  tolerated  by 
their  national  governments,  and  he  visited  them  with  retributive 
judgments,  accordingly.  Scripture  history  and  prophecy  are  full 
of  this  truth.  In  His  moral  and  providential  government  over  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth,  ancient  and  modern,  God  has  uniformly 
pursued  the  same  course.  Universal  history  attests  this.  The 
equity  of  this  t  feature  of  the  divine  administration  is  to  be  vindi- 
cated on  the  ground  that  civil  society,  everywhere,  communities, 
states,  and  nations,  are  morally  bound  to  protect  the  essential 
rights  of  each  and  every  human  being  within  their  geographical 


National  Responsibilities.  71 

limits,  (not  merely  as  some  say,  "  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number,")  that  "for  the  security  of  these  rights,  governments 
are  instituted  among  men" — that  governments  can  not  inno- 
cently be  instituted  for  any  purposes  or  under  any  constitution 
exclusive  of  this ;  and  that  no  community,  state,  or  nation  can 
have  a  moral  right  to  institute  or  to  maintain  any  government 
not  exercising  these  powers,  or  to  support  any  civil  rulers  by 
whom  these  duties  are  not  discharged.  The  evidences  of  this 
divine  constitution  of  civil  society  are  visible,  not  only  on  the 
pages  of  past  history,  but  in  the  present  condition  of  mankind. 
Communities  everywhere  enjoy  the  blessings  of  liberty,  and  the 
protection  of  law,  in  exact  proportion  to  the  fidelity  with  which 
they  honor  the  principles  upon  which  law  and  security  are  founded. 
And  the  general  prevalence  of  insecurity,  of  oppression,  and  of 
the  reign  of  despotism  among  the  nations,  is  owing,  mainly,  to  the 
fact  that  men  disregard  or  trample  upon  those  principles  by  the 
support  of  rulers  who  refuse  or  neglect  to  extend  protection, 
security,  and  freedom  to  all  classes  of  the  people. 

The  notion  that  a  "  Constitution  of  the  United  States,"  or  of 
any  other  nation,  can  be  so  framed  and  arranged  that  the  National 
Government,  by  its  constitutional  limitations,  can  be  restrained  from 
discharging  the  duties  devolving,  in  the  nature  of  things,  upon  all 
civil  governments,  particularly  upon  all  national  governments, 
and  that  the  national  government,  the  nation,  and  the  people  of 
whom  the  nation  is  composed,  can  thereby  and  thus  absolve  them- 
selves, or  be  absolved  from  the  duty  of  "  executing  justice  between 
a  man  and  his  neighbor,"  of  "  delivering  him  that  is  spoiled  out  of 
the  hand  of  the  oppressor,"  is  a  notion  too  impious  to  be  received 
by  any  one  who  fears  God,  too  servile  to  be  endured  by  any  one 
who  values  his  own  freedom,  too  disorganizing  to  be  tolerated  by 
any  one  who  prizes  social  order,  too  absurd  to  be  entertained  by 
any  one  who  has  ever  mastered  the  first  rudiments  of  legal  and 
political  science,  as  recognized  and  enunciated  by  standard  writ- 
ers on  civil  government  and  civil  law. 

If  the  Federal  Constitution  does,  in  fact,  contain  any  such  im- 
pious, despotic,  disorganizing,  and  absurd  limitations,  then  it  be- 
comes a  high  moral  duty  and  an  imperious  political  necessity,  more 
sacred  and  more  authoritative  than  any  parchments  or  compacts, 
to  disregard  and  over-rule  all  those  limitations,  to  obey  our  living 
God  rather  than  our  dead  fathers,  to  protect  our  own  liberties  by 
securing  the  liberties  of  our  enslaved  brethren,  to  deliver  the  nation 
by  delivering  the  oppressed,  to  establish  a  free  government  that 
will  exclude  Slavery ,  the  opposite  of  freedom. 


72  The  Constitution. 


THE    CONSTITUTION. 

But  there  is  no  truth  in  the  pretense  that  our  National  Govern- 
ment has  no  constitutional  authority  to  "establish  justice,  and 
secure  the  blessings  of  liberty."  The  document  itself,  in  its  first 
paragraph,  explicitly  affirms  itself  to  have  been  "ordained  and 
established"  by  "  the  people  of  the  United  States,"  for  that  express 
object,  which  is  stated  without  reservation  or  exception.  To  say 
that  the  powers  of  the  Government  created  by  the  Constitution 
are  not  commensurate  with  the  declared  objects  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, is  to  make  the  Constitution  a  cheat,  and  the  Government  an 
abortion.  If  the  Federal  Government  has  no  power  to  secure 
these  objects,  then  it  has  no  power  to  secure  any  of  the  other  de- 
clared objects  of  the  Constitution — no  power  to  preserve  "a  more 
perfect  Union,  to  insure  domestic  tranquillity,  provide  for  the  com- 
mon defense,  and  promote  the  general  welfare."  And  if  it  has  no 
power  to  secure  any  one  of  these  declared  objects,  then  it  has  no 
power  under  the  Constitution,  at  all.  If  the  Federal  Government 
has  no  power  to  secure  the  personal  liberties  of  its  subjects,  then 
it  has  no  claim  on  their  allegiance ;  for  allegiance  is  founded  upon 
protection.  If  the  Federal  Government  can  not  protect  its  sub- 
jects, it  can  not  remain  a  government ;  for  the  very  nature  of 
government  is  protection,  and  the  absence  of  power  to  protect  the 
personal  liberties  of  its  subjects  is  the  absence  of  power  to  protect 
any  of  the  rest  of  their  rights.  If  it  can  not  protect  them  at  home 
it  can  not  protect  them  abroad.  If  it  can  not  protect  them  from 
enslavement  under  authority  of  the  States,  then  the  States  can 
undermine  and  uproot  the  National  Government  by  chattelizing 
the  mass  of  its  citizens,  reducing  them  to  articles  of  merchandise. 

The  specific  provisions  of  the  Constitution  secure  its  declared  ob- 
jects. They  secure  to  the  people  the  privileges  of  "the  writ  of 
Habeas  Corpus,"  and  provide  that  "  no  man  shall  be  deprived  of 
liberty  without  due  process  of  law."  They  secure  religious  liberty, 
freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press.  And  they  restrict  these  secur- 
ities to  no  favored  class.  They  declare  that  '•  no  State  shall  pass 
any  bill  of  attainder,  ex  post  facto  law,  or  law  impairing  the 
obligations  of  contracts,  or  grant  any  title  of  nobility."  They 
direct  that  "  the  United  States  shatt  guaranty  to  every  State  in 
this  Union  a  Republican  form  of  government"  — a  Republicanism 
defined  by  the  preceding  securities  of  freedom.  And  they  commit 
to  the  Federal  Government  the  administration  of  this  Constitution, 
which  is  therein  declared  to  be  "  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,"  and 


Duties — Alternatives — Necessities.  73 

that  "  the  Judges  in  each  State  shall  be  bound  thereby,  any  thing 
in  the  constitution  or  laws  of  any  State  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing." 

The  only  pleas  set  up  against  the  exercise  of  these  Federal 
powers  for  the  security  of  personal  freedom  are  founded  on  sup- 
posed recognitions  of  Slavery  in  that  instrument.  The  plea  implies 
that  such  recognitions  of  Slavery  would  annul  constitutional  secur- 
ities of  freedom,  and  thus  defeat  the  declared  objects  of  "  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States"  in  establishing  the  government. 

To  this  plea  we  demur :  FIRST,  That  by  the  established  legal 
rules  of  expounding  the  Constitution,  the  clauses  cited  contain  no 
recognitions  of  Slavery.  SECOND,  that  such  recognitions,  if  ad- 
mitted, are  to  be  admitted  only  as  exceptions,  confined  strictly  to 
their  own  specified  limitations,  leaving  the  declared  objects  and 
leading  provisions  of  the  Constitution  in  full  force.  That  is  to  say, 
if  the  Constitution  did  provide  (as  it  does  not)  for  the  rendition 
of  fugitives  from  Slavery,  and  if  it  did  provide  for  a  misrepresent- 
ation of  three  fifths  of  them  in  Congress,  those  ambiguous,  anoma- 
lous, and  exceptional  clauses  could  not  annul  those  clear  and  ex- 
plicit provisions  in  favor  of  the  security  of  personal  liberty,  which, 
if  carried  out,  would  abolish  Slavery.  The  general  rule,  the  de- 
clared object,  could  not  be  superseded  and  annulled  by  the  excep- 
tion. The  plea  under  consideration  begins  under  the  pretext  of  a 
"compromise,"  but  ends  with  the  permanent  establishment  of 
Slavery,  and  the  consequent  subversion  of  freedom  —  a  "  compro- 
mise" in  which  freedom  loses  all  and  gains  nothing !  Thus  arrogant 
and  unfounded  are  the  pleas  under  consideration. 

DUTIES — ALTERNATIVES — NECESSITIES. 

But  no  possible  views  of  the  Constitution  can  relieve  the  nation 
and  the  National  Government  from  the  natural  duty,  the  moral 
obligation,  the  political  necessity,  of  abolishing  American  Slavery. 
If  the  Constitution  be  adequate,  as  we  have  shown,  for  the  national 
abolition  of  Slavery,  then  there  is  no  excuse  for  the  neglect  of  the 
Government  and  the  people  to  exercise,  in  that  direction,  and  for 
that  object,  those  constitutional  powers.  But  if  the  Constitution 
be  defective  in  that  particular,  then  the  fault  lies  with  the  nation, 
with  the  people  of  whom  the  nation  is  composed.  They  had  no 
moral  or  political  right  to  establish  such  a  defective  government. 
Its  defects,  fancied  or  real,  can  not  absolve  them  from  the  original 
and  irrepealable  obligations  of  our  common  nature,  of  our  common 
social  humanity,  which  no  compacts  can  annul.  If  we  have,  our- 


74  Duties — Alternatives — Necessities. 

selves,  entered  into  a  wicked  compact,  our  first  duty  is  to  repent 
of  the  sin,  and  bring  forth  fruits  meet  for  repentance,  by  repudiat- 
ing its  pretended  obligations,  and  performing  the  duty  we  had  pro- 
mised to  refrain  from  performing.  If  our  fathers  made  a  wicked 
compact,  they  could  neither  bind  themselves  nor  their  children  to 
fullfil  it.  Unlawful  compacts  are  never  binding,  nor  can  they  be, 
so  long  as  law  retains  its  authority.  No  plighted  faith  to  the 
slaveholders  can  absolve  us  from  the  discharge  of  known  duty. 
The  Slaveholders  have  violated  the  Missouri  Compromise,  which 
they  boasted  of  having  forced  upon  us  under  a  threat  of  dissolving 
the  Union.  They  now  say  that  the  Compromise  was  unconstitu- 
tional. Be  it  so.  It  was  unconstitutional,  because  it  was  a  com- 
promise between  Slavery  and  Freedom,  for  which  the  Constitution 
makes  no  provision — a  compromise  with  crime,  which  is  itself 
criminal.  "  The  compromises  of  the  Constitution"  (even  if  there 
were  any)  could  no  longer  be  urged  upon  us  by  the  Slaveholders, 
who  will  abide  by  no  compromises. 

The  nation  and  its  Government  are  bound  to  abolish  Slavery, 
because  the  nation  and  its  government  are  involved  in  the  guilt  of 
its  long-continued  existence,  extension,  and  protection.  The 
nation  and  the  National  Government  have  shaped  the  national 
policy,  and  prostituted  the  national  diplomacy  for  this  end.  If  the 
Constitution  sanctions  this,  the  nation  is  guilty  for  having  adopted 
and  supported  it.  If  the  Constitution  does  not  sanction  it,  the 
nation  is  guilty  of  protecting  and  extending  Slavery  without  its 
sanction,  and  against  its  declared  ends.  In  either  case,  the  national 
guilt  of  protecting  and  extending  Slavery  remains. 

And  that  guilt  would  not  be  washed  away  by  a  dissolution  of 
the  Union,  leaving  the  slaves  in  their  chains.  The  nation  has  no 
right  to  disband  without  liberating  them.  As  the  whole  nation  is 
responsible  for  Slavery,  so  the  whole  'nation,  and  every  part  of  it, 
is  bound  to  put  an  end  to  the  system.  The  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence contained  the  solemn  promise  of  THE  NATION  to  establish 
a  government  that  should  secure  the  inalienable  rights  of  all  men 
in  the  nation,  to  "  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  "The 
representatives  of  the  United  States  of  America,  in  general  Congress 
assembled,  appealed  to  the  Supreme  Judge  of  the  World  for  the 
rectitude  of  their  intentions "  in  making  this  declaration.  No 
earthly  power  can  absolve  the  Nation,  nor  any  portion  of  it,  from 
this  promise.  No  plea  that  THE  STATES  ought  to  abolish  Slavery, 
however  truthful,  can  release  the  Nation  from  this  national  pro- 
mise. No  amount  of  "  moral  suasion,"  either  by  individuals  or  by 


Duties — Alternatives — Necessities.  75 

the  Nation,  entreating  the  slave-masters  to  emancipate  their  slaves, 
can  release  the  Nation  from  this  promise.  Both  by  solemn  pro- 
mise and  by  original  natural  obligation,  the  Nation  is  bound  to 
"  execute  justice,"  to  "  proclaim  liberty  throughout  the  land  unto  all 
the  inhabitants  thereof."  This  National  duty  must  be  discharged, 
or  the  Nation  can  not  be  saved.  The  SLAVEHOLDER  that  repents 
of  his  oppression  will  indeed  be  forgiven.  The  State  that  repents  of 
its  support  of  Slavery  may  be  forgiven.  But  neither  the  repentance 
of  the  Slaveholder  nor  of  the  State  can  avail  for  the  Nation,  if  the 
Nation  refuses  to  repent  and  put  away  the  sin.  All  the  Slavehold- 
ers and  all  the  Slave  States  might  repent  and  be  forgiven,  but  if 
the  people  of  the  Northern  States,  who  have  so  long  sustained 
Slavery,  would  have  a  share  in  that  forgiveness,  they,  too,  must 
have  a  share  in  the  repentance,  and  in  the  putting  away  of  the  sin, 
in  which  they  also  have  been  involved.  National  repentance  and 
National  amendment  constitute  the  only  remedy  for  National  sins 
and  their  effects. 

The  responsibilities,  the  duties,  the  delinquencies,  the  repentance, 
the  amendment,  and  the  preservation  of  Nations  and  National 
Governments,  are  closely  connected  together,  if,  indeed,  there  be 
any  distinction  between  them.  The  Republican  theory  regards  the 
people  as  sovereign,  and  the  rulers  elected  by  them  as  their  repre- 
sentatives and  servants.  This  theory  is  correct,  if  it  be  added 
thereto,  that  the  Creator  is  supreme  over  communities  and  their 
governments,  that  Rulers  must  not  neglect  the  administration  of 
justice  to  please  their  constituents,  and  that  the  sovereignty  of  the 
People,  like  the  authority  of  Rulers,  is  valid  for  the  protection  of 
rights,  but  not  for  the  violation  of  them. 

The  wickedness  of  the  Government,  or  of  the  Administration, 
or  of  the  Statesman,  becomes  the  wickedness  of  the  people — of  the 
voters  who  elect  and  cordially  sustain  them.  It  is  idle  for  the 
people,  the  voters,  to  complain  of  the  Government,  of  the  Admin- 
istration, of  the  President,  of  the  Member  of  Congress,  for  their 
servility  to  the  Slaveholders,  and  their  support  of  Slavery,  so  long 
as  they  themselves  continue  to  vote  for  candidates  who  are  known 
to  disclaim  the  design  of  interfering  with  Slavery  in  the  Slave 
States.  Not  to  interfere  with  it  is  to  afford  it  national  protection, 
and  that  national  protection  is  our  great  national  sin,  for  which  the 
voice  of  God,  in  Nature,  in  Scripture,  and  in  Providence,  calls 
loudly  upon  the  Government,  the  Nation,  the  people,  and  the  vot- 
ing citizen  who  consents  with  them,  to  repent.  If  it  be  sinful  in 
the  Administration,  the  President,  and  the  Members  of  Congress 


76  Duties — Alternatives — Necessities. 

and  the  Judiciary,  to  neglect  or  postpone  the  duty  of  abolishing 
American  Slavery,  then  it  is  sinful  in  the  voting  citizen  to  join 
with  them  in  such  a  course.  And  they  do  thus  join  with  and  sus- 
tain them  whenever  they  vote  for  candidates  for  those  offices  who 
are  not  to  be  relied  upon  to  pursue  an  opposite  course.  If  con- 
siderations of  supposed  utility,  expediency,  and  public  advantage 
may  justify  the  citizen  in  voting  for  such  candidates,  thus  voting 
for  the  continued  National  support  of  Slavery,  then  the  same,  or 
similar  considerations,  may  justify  the  President,  the  Congress,  and 
the  Judiciary  in  their  continuance  of  the  National  support  of 
Slavery.  Yet  scores  of  thousands  of  such  voters  are  loud  in  their 
condemnation  of  "  compromises  with  Slavery,"  little  thinking  that 
such  compromises  are  involved  in  their  own  votes.  They  cry  out 
against  "  dough-faces,"  without  reflecting  that  their  own  votes  lie 
at  the  bottom  of  the  mischief,  that  if  they  continue  their  present 
course,  and  if  all  other  voters  follow  their  example,  the  National 
Abolition  of  Slavery  can  never  take  place,  because  the  Government 
can  never  come  into  the  hands  of  those  who  would  abolish  it. 

Whatever  of  guilt  is  involved  in  slaveholding,  and  whatever  may 
be  the  accumulated  guilt'  of  all  the  slaveholding  in  the  nation,  that 
entire  weight  of  guilt  rests,  most  indisputably,  upon  the  Nation  and 
the  National  Government  that  afford  it  protection,  by  tolerating 
its  existence.  If  this  be  not  true,  then  there  is  no  use  nor  signifi- 
cance in  charging  upon  any  nation  or  national  government  the 
guilt  of  upholding  or  permitting  oppression. 

And  whatever  of  guilt  rests  on  the  nation  or  on  the  Government 
in  respect  to  the  tolerance  of  the  Slave  System,  most  indisputably 
rests  upon  each  citizen  who  votes  for  a  continuance  of  the  present 
condition  of  things,  by  voting  for  such  candidates  for  Federal 
offices  as  he  has  reason  to  believe  will  not  exert  their  powers  for  a 
national  abolition  of  Slavery.  If  this  be  not  true,  we  may  as  well 
dismiss  all  ideas  of  the  moral  responsibility  of  citizens  in  respect 
to  their  choice  of  civil  rulers.  National  responsibilities  are  the 
personal  responsibilities  of  the  individuals  of  whom  the  nation  is 
composed,  and  these  responsibilities  are  not  frittered  away  by  sub- 
division among  the  millions  of  voters.  The  entire  guilt  that  rests 
upon  all  rests  upon  each  one  who,  by  his  vote,  participates  in 
it.  And  the  guilt  of  each  one  of  them  is  multiplied  by  the  num- 
bers of  all  the  rest  whose  sin  is  approved  and  indorsed  by  his 
example.  So  that  political  responsibilities  are  among  the  most 
weighty  that  can  be  sustained  by  human  beings,  and  they  in- 
volve the  most  extensive  and  enduring  results. 


Abolition  Pledge. 


TEMPTATIONS  AND  SAFEGUARDS. 

But  the  weight  of  these  responsibilities  appears  to  be  but  little 
regarded,  especially  at  those  times  when  the  people,  collectively 
and  individually,  are  called  upon  to  the  discharge  of  the  duties 
indicated  by  them.  Congressional,  and  especially  Presidential 
elections,  presenting,  as  they  do,  the  proper  occasions  for  the  dis- 
charge of  our  national  duties  respecting  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
are,  notoriously,  the  very  seasons  in  which  all  moral  considera- 
tions on  that  subject  lose  their  hold  on  the  great  majority  even 
of  those  who,  at  other  times,  appear  to  be  most  deeply  affected 
by  them;  but  who  then  suffer  them  to  be  overborne  by  consi- 
derations of  expediency,  diverted  by  deceptive  compromises,  or 
swept  away  by  those  gales  of  excitement  which  artful  politi- 
cians always  know  how  to  stimulate  and  use  on  such  occasions, 
for  their  own  ends.  The  dread  of  standing  alone,  the  reproach 
of  being  fanatical,  the  impulse  to  go  with  the  multitude,  the  vague, 
delusive  hope  of  accomplishing  a  little  by  choosing  the  least  of 
two  evils,  these  are  among  the  influences  that  prevent  even  pro- 
fessed Abolitionists  from  voting  for  the  national  abolition  of 
Slavery.  And  nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  the  national 
abolition  of  Slavery  can  never  take  place,  until  these  untoward 
influences  are  effectually  counteracted,  these  habits  and  practices 
broken  up  and  abandoned.  Just  as  certainly  as  drunkenness 
must  prevail  and  increase  unless  sober  citizens  abandon  the  com- 
mon use  of  intoxicating  liquors,  just  so  certainly  the  nation  can 
never  prevent  the  continuance  and  increase  of  Slavery,  so  long 
as  the  mass  of  moral  and  religious  citizens  continue  to  vote  for 
candidates  for  national  offices  who  are  not  known  to  be  heartily 
devoted  to  the  measure  of  national  abolition.  Why,  then,  should 
not  the  same  preventive  measures  be  applied  to  the  latter  evil 
as  to  the  former  ?  If  the  pledge  of  total  abstinence  from  the 
intoxicating  drafts  of  alcohol  was  found  a  necessary  auxiliary  in 
the  cause  of  Temperance,  why  should  not  the  pledge  of  total 
abstinence  from  the  intoxication  of  pro-slavery  politics  be  equally 
necessary  to  the  cause  of  freedom  ?  Confining  our  attention,  for 
the  present,  to  National  politics,  we  propose  the  following 

ABOLITION  PLEDGE. 

"  We,  the  undersigned,  believing  in  the  wickedness,  illegality, 
and  unconstitutionality  of  American  Slavery,  and  in  the  duty  of  the 
American  people  and  Government  to  abolish  it,  do  hereby  pledge 


78  A  National  Abolition  Party. 

ourselves,  that,  until  Slavery  shall  be  abolished  in  this  land,  we  will 
not  vote  for  any  candidate  for  Congress,  or  the  Presidency,  or  the 
Vice-Presidency,  who  is  not  publicly  known  to  be  in  favor  of  the 
Abolition  of  Slavery  by  the  action  of  the  American  people  and 
Government." 

ITS  USES. 

The  circulation  of  this  pledge,  in  any  locality,  would  afford  the 
best  of  facilities  for  conversation,  and  the  diffusion  of  important 
truths.  Presented  as  a  definite  question  of  personal  duty,  it  would 
acquire  fresh  interest.  Every  one  to  whom  the  pledge  is  pre- 
sented, will  be  led  to  inquire,  whether  he,  himself,  has  a  duty  to 
perform,  and  what  that  duty  is.  Such  a  movement  would  give 
definiteness  to  the  enterprise  of  abolition.  Every  other  instru- 
mentality and  influence  would  be  seen  as  converging  towards  this. 
"  Moral  suasion,"  religious  influences,  the  pulpit,  ecclesiastical  ac- 
tion, delineations  of  slavery  and  of  its  blighting  effects,  all  these 
would  be  seen  to  have  meaning  and  practical  value  when  regarded 
as  means  to  an  important  end,  THE  NATIONAL  ABOLITION  OF 
SLAVERY.  And  it  will  be  seen  that  no  amount  or  variety  of  influ- 
ences will  have  produced  their  proper  effect,  any  farther  than  as 
they  shall  have  enlisted  the  voters  of  America  in  the  one  great  work 
of  abolishing  Slavery  in  America.  Every  thing  else  is  but  pre- 
liminary and  auxiliary  to  this.  All  else  is  talk,  which,  if  it  goes 
no  farther,  is  mere  talk.  THIS  is  ACTION.  Talk  is  good,  in  its 
place,  as  a  means  of  producing  action.  After  a  talk  of  twenty- 
three  or  twenty-four  years,  it  is  time  for  action,  or  at  least  for  en- 
listments and  preparations  for  action. 

The  number  of  pledged  voters  in  neighborhoods,  villages,  town- 
ships, cities,  counties,  and  States,  will  help,  from  time  to  time,  to  mark 
progress.  One  hundred  thousand  signers  to  the  pledge  would  revo. 
lutionize  or  supersede  the  Republican  party,  and  there  are  proba- 
bly thrice  that  number  who  profess  to  be,  in  principle,  with  us. 
We  ask  them  to  be  with  their  principles,  in  practice.  Five  hun- 
dred thousand  signatures  to  the  Abolition  pledge,  would  settle, 
prospectively  and  speedily,  the  question  of  American  Slavery. 
Politicians,  now  sitting  in  darkness,  would  soon  see  great  light. 
Constitutional  difficulties  would  vanish.  And  Slaveholders  would 
themselves  hasten  to  get  rid  of  the  system. 

A  NATIONAL  ABOLITION  PARTY. 

A  national  abolition  of  Slavery  calls  for  a  National  party,  a 
party  supported  at  the  North  and  at  the  South.  The  petty 


A  National  Abolition  Party.  79 

oligarchy  has  well-nigh  throttled  the  Nation.  Assuming  to  be, 
themselves,  "  the  South,"  they  have  managed  to  control  the  North. 
The  inquiry  has  been  started,  and  is  still  debated :  Whether  there 
be  any  North  ?  One  hundred  thousand  pledged  abolition  voters, 
at  the  North  would  solve  that  question.  And  the  solution  would 
lead  to  the  discovery  that  there  is  also  a  South.  Comparing  the 
census  with  the  late  election  returns,*  it  appears  that  not  more 
than  one  third,  probably  not  more  than  one  fifth,  of  the  Southern 
voters  are  Slaveholders.  The  great  majority  are  ^o^i-slaveholders. 
These  will  soon  show  themselves  to  be  "  the  South,"  when  it  is 
once  discovered  by  them  that  there  is  a  North,  and  that  the  North 
is  ready  to  unite  with  them  for  a  National  deliverance.  "Our 
glorious  Union "  may  thus  be  secured  and  perpetuated.  A  Na- 
tional deliverance  from  Slavery  must  be  its  object  and  its  basis 
A  Northern  rally  for  Northern  interests  can  not  develop  it.  Mere. 
"  non-extension"  can  interest  few  Southerners,  except  those\  who 
seek  to  emigrate.  Least  of  all  would  a  separation  from  the  free 
North  be  desired  by  Southern  abolitionists.  The  spirit  of  general 
liberty  can  be  developed  only  by  a  National  Abolition  Party 
strongly  sustained  by  "  the  North"  and  "  the  South."  By  such  a 
movement,  the  reproach  of  "  Sectionalism"  would  be  transferred 
to  its  proper  place. 

Such,  then,  is  a  hasty  outline  of  the  course  we  would  have  the 
friends  of  liberty,  in  this  country,  pursue.  This  is  our  proposed 
substitute  for  the  timid  policy  and  vacillating  tactics  of  the  Re- 
publican party,  hi  the  STRUGGLE  OF  EIGHTEEN  HUNDRED  FIFTY- 
SIX.  This  is  our  advice  to  Republicans.  This  is  our  advice  to 
Free-Soilers.  This  is  our  programme  for  Abolitionists.  This  is 
our  proposal  to  our  fallow-citizens,  our  countrymen.  We  invite 
you,  one  and  all,  Northern  men  and  Southern  men,  to  a  grand 
united  rally  for  NATIONAL  DELIVERANCE  BY  A  NATIONAL  ABOLI- 
TION OF  SLAVERY. 

Dismissing  useless  regrets  for  the  past,  let  us  look  hopefully  to 
the  future.  We  say  not  that  the  Republican  movement  has 
accomplished  nothing.  It  was  something  to  have  thoroughly 

*  Presidential  votes  cast  in  the  Slave  States,  in!856,  .        .        1,137,723 

Slaveholders,  by  census  of  1850,  including  women  and  minors,  who 

do  not  vote,  .  , .        .  347,525 

Leaves,  non-slaveholding  votes, 790,198 

In  the  census,  persons  holding  slaves  in  several  counties,  were  several  times 
counted.  Deducting  these,  and  women  and  minors,  the  real  number  of  slavehold- 
ing  voters  would  probably  not  exceed  200,000.  Non-slaveholding,  937,723. 


80  A  National  Abolition  Party. 

alarmed  the  oligarchy  of  slaveholders.  But  it  is  instructive  to 
notice  the  cause  of  that  alarm.  The  President's  Message,  and  a 
month's  debate  upon  it,  in  both  Houses,  have  revealed  tlie  cause. 
Republicans  were  suspected  of  having  contemplated  a  National 
Abolition  of  Slavery.  This,  and  nothing  else,  caused  the  alarm. 
Instead  of  laboring  to  appease  it,  by  disclaimers,  as  has  been  at- 
tempted in  Congress,  let  all  who  hate  slavery  and  love  freedom, 
unite,  openly  and  boldly,  for  the  defense  of  the  latter,  by  the  abo- 
lition of.  the  former. 


NOTE. 

Near  the  beginning  of  this  Review,  some  statements  were  made  concerning  the 
course  of  Gov.  Geary,  in  Kansas.  It  is  proper  to  say  that  his  subsequent  course, 
(while  our  printing  has  lingered,)  has  been  less  obnoxious,  and  hi  some  particulars, 
quite  satisfactory,  to  the  friends  of  freedom  and  good  order.  Some  evidence  of 
this  is  afforded  by  the  complaints  of  Border  Ruffians  against  him.  Through  his 
influence  Judge  Lecompte  has  been  removed,  and  some  degree  of  protection  has 
been  afforded  to  the  free  settlers.  The  Administration,  too,  has  relaxed  its  rigors. 
Since  the  election,  the  Democratic  party  has  been  in  no  immediate  necessity  for 
securing  Southern  votes,  and  now  seeks  to  regain  Northern  favor.  The  panic 
created  by  the  strong  vote  of  a  party  suspected  of  latent  abolitionism  has  had  a 
salutary  effect,  while  the  thrift  and  prospective  increase  of  free  settlers,  has  held  in 
check  the  Southern  invasion.  "  Hope  on  !  Hope  ever!" 


14  DAY  USE 

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